Kate Seitz

We are grateful to our more than 100 volunteers! In 2021, volunteers donated more than 1,000 hours to Belwin. Thank you!

Volunteers Chuck and Hope Lea gave more than 11,000 hours of their time to Belwin, monitoring bird activity, recording weather data, documenting wild flowers, and connecting kids with the natural world.

Learn more about the Minnesota Nature Photography Club members and their photos on display at the Lucy Winton Bell Athletic Fields.

Great news for declining kestrel populations! In June 2021, members of the Saint Paul Audubon Society Conservation Committee (SPASCC) found five kestrel chicks in one of two nesting boxes at Belwin. The birds fledged after about 30 days. In 2020, SPASCC members found four nestlings and one unhatched egg in a box at Belwin. 1… Continue Reading Kestrels at Belwin

At Belwin Conservancy, we steward more than 1,500 ecologically rich acres next door to a major metropolitan area. Our goal is not just to maintain the land as it was when we acquired it, but to transform the land to the state it was in before European settlers arrived and to support the most ecologically… Continue Reading Burning at Belwin

We are pleased to introduce Belwin’s 2021 Artist in Residence, Tom Bierlein. Tom is a Minneapolis-based sculptor, builder, and gardener who creates spaces to experience rest, connection, and reflection between people and the natural environment.

We spoke with with Tamsie Ringler, 2016-2017 Belwin Artist in Residence, about her newest project, Winter is Alive! A Cooler World Carnival taking place in Madison, Wis.

This article was first published in the winter of 2017. On the shortest day of 2016, more than 100 people came to Belwin for our first Solstice Bonfire. Great piles of buckthorn branches were burned, music was sung, stories were told and friendships—with others and with the land—were made. Spotted knapweed is an invasive species… Continue Reading When Winter Favors Summer Weeds

On Monday, August 21, 2017, members of the Minnesota Astronomical Society (MAS) and Belwin Conservancy converged at Belwin’s Joseph J. Casby Observatory to witness a historic event: the 2017 eclipse, which was visible only in the United States. MAS members David Truchot and Jon Hayman operated the Lunt and 130mm telescopes inside the Joseph J.… Continue Reading Witnessing the Historic 2017 Solar Eclipse at Belwin

The land around Lake Edith in Afton is the start of the Minnesota Blufflands, a landscape comprised of prairies, oak savannas, coulees and woodlands. As the last glaciers melted 12,000 years ago, sand and gravel spewed across the landscape. Oak trees thrived on that dry soil, and regular fires kept the underbrush back while allowing… Continue Reading Belwin’s Savanna Hills: A Labor of Love

“The human child in nature may well be the most important indicator species of future sustainability.” – Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods Published September 3, 2016 The year was 1970 and issues facing conservationists then were strikingly similar to what we face today: over-development of ecologically important land and children spending… Continue Reading Children in Nature: A partnership with Saint Paul Public Schools