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CAMN MONTHLY NEWSLETTER
March, 2026 | | | | PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
Hello and welcome to another glorious spring in Arkansas. There is lots to be thankful for this March. The Pinnacle hothouse crew got the old greenhouse torn down and gotten the first batch of seeds in the pots. Bill Toland will have new shade covers ordered soon and the new configuration should be an improvement when it come time to hold the plant sale.
| | | Lynn Foster did a terrific job organizing the Arkansas Reads Leopold event(s). Those who attended will attest to how inspiring it was to listen to the readings. There were also great birding and nature walk opportunities. Hopefully this event can be repeated next year. Thanks to Lynn, the readers, and all the volunteers who participated.
Friends of Fourche Creek are having a cleanup on March 28th. Thanks to all of our volunteer who work out at Fourche Creek.
And we’ve gotten a little rain. The world is greening up. There’s lots to be thankful for this spring. |
CAMN General Meeting
Thursday, March 19, 2026
Janet Lanza, Emeritus Professor of Biology for University of Arkansas & Outreach Coordinator for Arkansas Wild Spaces will be presenting Beyond native plants: other tips for a wildlife-friendly yard.
Location: Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center
602 President Clinton Ave.
Little Rock, AR 72201
Time: 6:00 PM until 8:00 PM
Pizza at 6:00. $1.00/slice
Program 6:30--7:30. Counts as 2 hrs CE in person. Zoom available 1 hr CE.
|  | Native Plants
By Bill Toland
The native plant crew at PMSP recently sowed about 400 pots of Arkansas native perennials.
Some of the plants will offered for sale in May at a downtown library event and the rest to the CAMN membership who want to plant in the spring. These plants will be in quart size pots for $5 each. All of the proceeds will be applied to rebuilding a structure to raise native plants at the park.
A much larger fall sale in September will occur also.
Dates and times will be posted in April, along with the names of the species available for the spring sale. |  | | Frank and Joan Meeks |  | Kay Sanders and Cindy Hancock | | |
 | | Frank Olinde |  | Joan Meeks. Denise Ragland is hiding somewhere! | | |
| Little Wild Ones
Central Arkansas Master Naturalist Project
Pinnacle Mountain State Park
The Little Wild Ones Project, for pre-school children, is part of the Central Arkansas Master Naturalist Program that meets every first and third Thursday at 10:00 (usually 30-45 minutes), at the Visitor’s Center, 9600 Highway 300, Roland, AR. Dedicated, retired teachers are the docents and presenters. | | | The focus of the programs are about nature in Arkansas. The staff at the Visitor’s Center is very involved in the curriculum. There are always books to be read, a talk about the facts of the subject, a fun craft, and sometimes a song or a parade to show off the crafts and new knowledge!Come join us! For info: joellen.beard@comcast.net | Subjects for the forthcoming lessons are:
March 5: Alligators
March 19: Eagles
April 2: Rabbits
April 16: Frogs
May 7: Seeds
May 21: Native Plants |  |
Below the Surface
By Anne Holcomb
The NiT class of 2026 had a great experience on February 21 with presenter Dr. Dustin Lynch, Chief of Research for ANHC, talking about Fish of Arkansas in the morning, and then taking the class to Fourche Creek at Interstate Park for some hands-on and up-close viewing of darters, minnows, sunfish, crayfish, and other critters trapped from the creek that day. CAMN member and ANHC employee Katie Morris, accompanied by Chase, another ANHC person, were in and out of the water the whole time, demonstrating various seining and netting techniques, as well as stunning and netting via (harmless) electroshock zapping. Katie was also able capture a blue-belly darter, a small, beautifully colored darter endemic to Fourche Creek in the Little Rock area, which nobody knew about until she discovered it while doing research for her masters. So much beauty and diversity living and thriving in the murky waters of Fourche!
Photos by Tyler Cobb
|  |  | | News from Arkansas Wild Spaces
Janet Lanza
Happy Spring from Arkansas Wild Spaces!
First Certified HOA
We are very pleased to announce that we have certified our very first HOA property. Woodlands Edge, a community southwest of the intersection between Bowman and Kanis Roads, has a considerable area allocated to a number of native oak-pine forests and a few native meadow green spaces. In particular is a meadow that qualifies as an Arkansas Wild Space. | | | While this area still has some invasives (that are being removed), there are multiple populations of wonderful native plants (e.g., butterfly weed, American germander, big bluestem, Canada wildrye, and others). The Woodlands Edge Environmental Protection Committee has an organized plan to maintain this area and remove invasives, add natives, and increase the biodiversity of native wildlife. Congratulations to this forward-thinking community and to Ann Bleed, CAMN member and AWS Habitat Advisor, who has spear-headed and continues to lead this effort!
Yard Visits Starting Again
Elsewhere in central Arkansas, the bluets, spring beauties, violets, spiderworts, redbuds, and dogwoods are blooming, and AWS is gearing up for another season of helping land stewards learn how to create wildlife habitat in their yards. We’re carrying over 10 yard-visit applications from 2025 that we were unable to complete, and we have already received 15 new applications this year. With 19 Habitat Advisors and more currently in training, we expect to expand our reach and assist even more members of the community in creating spaces that support birds, pollinators, and other wildlife.
|  | Pictured: Redbud in bloom, newly sprouted Mayapple with flower bud, and field of spring beauties.
Arkansas Wild Spaces Is Looking for Volunteers
However, we expect to receive more applications in the next couple of months as people meet us at native plant sales and Earth Day events. We are open to training new Habitat Advisors! If you are interested in native plants and helping others in Central Arkansas improve the bird and butterfly habitats in their backyards, please consider joining Arkansas Wild Spaces. We work one-on-one with concerned residents to assess their yards and make recommendations on how to improve the natural habitats around their homes. We have a training course that gives prospective volunteers enough knowledge and skills to become effective Habitat Advisors. To learn more, please contact Lia Lent at lentmail@sbcglobal.net.
| | Buckets of Doom: Doom for Mosquitoes, That Is
A new innovation that we are trying is to make and sell Buckets of Doom! What!!!??? These are 5-gallon buckets containing water, rotting leaves, and bacteria that kill ONLY mosquito and black flies (mosquito dunks). We don’t know the price yet, but they will cost no more than $15. If you would like one, or instructions to make your own, contact Janet Lanza (jxlanza@ualr.edu).
Visit Arkansas Wild Spaces’s New Website
Finally, we are happy to announce we have a new website!
Audrey Cobb took the lead on this project, with significant
contributions from Dauphne Trenholm and others. Please visit us at ArkansasWildSpaces.org and share the website with your friends and family!
| | | Arkansas Reads Leopold
By Lynn Foster
Aldo Leopold lived from 1887 to 1948. He spent his life outdoors, whether working for the US Forest Service, teaching at the University of Wisconsin, or restoring 80 acres with his family in one of the “sand counties” of central Wisconsin. He died of a heart attack, helping a neighbor fight a brush fire that had gotten out of control. Only a week before, he had received a letter from Oxford University Press informing him that it had accepted his manuscript, which his son, who edited the book after Leopold’s death, titled A Sand County Almanac. A Sand County Almanac introduced readers to Leopold’s “land ethic,” his philosophy of environmental ethics. As Leopold put it, “All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants and animals, or collectively the land. . . . When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”
Today, the Aldo Leopold Foundation carries on his ideas. In 2026, it awarded the Arkansas Audubon Society a grant of $1000 and 440 copies of A Sand County Almanac. The purpose of the grant was to hold multiple community readings throughout Arkansas featuring A Sand County Almanac, as well as other authors’ writings, to “assemble, share, inspire, and connect” the community.
Partners included in the planning were the Arkansas Environmental Education Association, Arkansas Master Naturalists Central, Foothills, and Northwest Chapters, Audubon Delta, Audubon Society of Central Arkansas, Central Arkansas Library System, Faulkner County Library, Laman Library, Leopold Project, Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society, Northsong Wild Bird Rehabilitation, Ozark Natural Science Center, Ozark Society, Paper Hearts and Wordsworth bookstores, Sierra Club, Unitarian Universalist Church of Little Rock, and Wild Birds Unlimited.
Nine events took place beginning on Tuesday, March 3 and ending on Sunday, March 8. They were advertised on Facebook, websites, and via emails.
This account will focus on the Little Rock events involving CAMN members.
The week got off to a good start with an evening showing of Green Fire at the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock. Eighty-three people attended.
The weather did its best to dampen turnout on Saturday at the Little Rock Audubon Center. We had to cancel the birding field trip due to start at 8 am, as it was pouring rain, but the readings began on time at 10 am. Of the ten Saturday readers, CAMN members included Diane Brownlee, Anne Holcomb, Ann Bowick Owen, Cadence Ventress, and me. Janet Nye and Ari Remmel led nature walks afterward. |  | Saturday attendees, Diane Brownlee, Lynn Foster and Carol Trana | Cadence Ventress and Ann Bowick Owen
The Sunday Little Rock Audubon Center community reading commenced with a birding field trip at the Audubon Center led by Ariana Remmel, followed two hours of reading by ten community members. CAMN members reading were Beth White, Ariana Remmel, Cherrie-Lee Phillip, John Sommer, Jodi Morris, and Corbin Cannon. Jodi Morris led a nature walk afterward. | Cherrie-Lee Phillip, Beth White, John Sommer | Ariana Remmel, Jodi Morris, Corbin Cannon | Thanks are due to Uta Meyer, who made the Audubon Center available, and to Ruddie Allen, who staffed the Center during the events. Thanks also to the CAMN members who got coffee, handed out door prize tickets, provided children’s activities, introduced speakers, directed traffic, and made attendees feel at home: Kathy Boone, Corbin Cannon, Paul Gosnell, Anne & David Holcomb, Debbie Milam, Sandy Moore, Jodi Morris, Patrice O’Donoghue, Cherrie-Lee Phillip, Ariana Remmel, Carol Trana, and Nancy Wyatt.
Also on Sunday, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Little Rock had a two-part event—the regular Sunday Service, which had 86 participants and featured the short film “Like a Mountain,” with emphasis on environmental ethics, and the Forum, which immediately followed the service, and which 22 people attended. I mention it because three CAMN members organized the event: Patrice O’Donaghue, Martha Nixon, and Linda Vanblaricom.
Thanks to all who created these events and brought a lot of folks a little closer to nature for a little while! And best of all, next year’s naturalists in training will receive free copies of A Sand County Almanac! | |