Renowned environmental artist Xavier Cortada encounters the Invisible Barn, a thought-provoking folly at Sagehen Creek Field Station. Image credit: Sagehen Creek Field Station Take a forest stroll at the NRS’s Sagehen Creek Field Station, and you will encounter an Invisible Barn. The structure’s edges fade into the open air, until…
Raising an Invisible Barn
…at you. Then realization dawns on you–you’re seeing a reflection of yourself surrounded by nature. This is the concept behind Invisible Barn, an environmental art project designed to provoke questions about the presence of people in nature. Developed by New York design firm stpmj, Invisible Barn was selected as a…
Why art at NRS reserves?
…people in nature, without telling them explicitly what to think or how to feel. Water strider. Image credit: Faerthen Felix Invisible Barn is a departure from the idea of imposing preconceived, top-down form on a community narrative. It’s more abstract. Invisible Barn builds on the techniques of the Aldo Leopold…
Field station planned for UC Merced’s Vernal Pools and Grassland Reserve
…feel in awe of nature.” The Virginia Smith Trust barn before its collapse in April. Image credit: Veronica Adrover The Virginia Smith Trust barn Before reaching the vernal pools, Mo slows the Gator by the remains of the Virginia Smith Trust barn. Constructed in 1923, the barn gave way to…
Sedgwick ranch house revival
…already one of her passions; saving this one, part of her alma mater, made perfect sense. It wasn’t long before she offered to finance its restoration. The barn project was completed in 2009 and heralded with a barn dance that has since gone annual — the fifth iteration was held…
Toothy Trimmers
Strolling the sandy paths of Fort Ord Natural Reserve, on the coast of Monterey County, feels a bit like wandering through Lilliput. In place of head-high hedges and broad oak boughs grow Mother Nature’s own bonsais. Sandmat manzanita forms a leafy carpet underfoot, interspersed with California lilac the size of…
Renovated Blue Oak Ranch open for business
…Alum Rock neighborhood of San Jose, Blue Oak Ranch has been a popular site for field research since it joined the NRS in 2007. Back then, living space was limited to a single, albeit large, barn, and reserve staff lived either in one wing of the barn or a trailer….
Quarters for kestrels
…chicks. This penchant for prefab tree hollows has hurt kestrels, wood ducks, barn owls, bluebirds, and dozens of other cavity-nesting birds unable to drill their own abodes. The American kestrel is a small raptor only slightly larger than a robin. Image credit: Chris Swarth Conservation-minded humans are now stepping in…