2 days Ago
Aiken’s 2025 Earth Day celebration brought gardeners, birders, educators, citizen scientists, advocates, stewards and hobbyists to the Newberry Street Festival Area and The Alley on April 5 to promote the responsible use, conservation and appreciation of the earth’s resources. More than 30 exhibitors were present, presenting a continuum from lowly worms to lofty birds and much in between. “There are a lot of great community organizations here,” said EmmaLee Sams, executive director of the Aiken Downtown Development Association .
“This is the first year that Aiken Downtown Development is the host of Earth Day. We’re super excited. We’re glad to be host this in partnership with the City of Aiken,” she said.
At the South Carolina Bluebird Society tent, society president Mike DeBruhl said 2024 was a record year. “We fledged over 8,000 new bluebirds. We’re now maintaining 2,000 nest boxes across the state, and we have 91 different trails that we’re maintaining,” he said.
“Our monitors go out weekly collecting the data from the nest boxes, starting from when the nest is made to the first egg and when they hatch and that type of thing. We keep track of those statistics and report them, compiling that once a year and provide it to the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology for their research purposes,” DeBruhl said. “We have over 150 boxes in Hitchcock Woods.
We cooperate with the Hitchcock Woods Foundation. They loan us their four-wheeler and we go out and check them, which takes quite a while as you might imagine,” DeBruhl said. Despite the extensive damage caused in Hitchcock Woods by Hurricane Helene in September, only two boxes were damaged, he said.
DeBruhl said the society provides an annual $3,000 wildlife management scholarship to the Department of Biological, Environmental and Earth Sciences at the USC Aiken College of Sciences and Engineering. A trail on campus has 21 nest boxes. “They're doing some research for us about the viability of eggs and predator control.
They help us in Hitchcock Woods as well,” he said. Jerry Martin of the Aiken Beekeepers Association was there to describe the hobby he’s enjoyed for eight years. “We’ve got a lot of younger people that are interested in it now,” he said.
“The bee population is kind of waning right now. You’ve really got to keep up with them. It’s not like a pet that you have to feed every day, but you really need to go down there and have a look at them every week at least,” Martin said, adding that bees are crucial for pollinating crops and wild plants.
“Most of people are into it for the honey. I hate to tell it, but that’s kind of the hard part of keeping bees,” he said. Eric Monaco, president of the Augusta-Aiken Audubon Society stood behind a table of donated bird houses.
“We have 200 of them. We’re selling them for $10 apiece to support our scholarships. We give away two $500 scholarships,” he said.
“We just gave away one scholarship to a USC Aiken student working with Aiken Land Conservancy who’s going to put red cockaded woodpecker inserts in trees at Boyd Pond Park for some of those birds travelling between the Savannah River Site and Hitchcock Woods,” Monaco said. “We advocate for conservation birds and bird habitat,” he said. “We also support Audubon’s Silver Bluff Sanctuary.
” USCA’s Ruth Patrick Science Education Center set up a display of the microscopes they use with different age groups from kindergarten to high school, and specimens of insects and taxidermy, including a fox and a great blue heron. “We do a lot of catching at the creek and dipping with nets, and catching tiny macroinvertebrates, which are really just insects in the middle of their life cycles,” said Kimberly Fickling the center’s director of environmental education At the Aiken Land Conservancy’s tent preschool buddies Carson Jones and Josh Adams were painting paper butterflies while wearing Smokey Bear hats they obtained from the South Carolina Forestry Commission . “This has become our yearly tradition,” said Carson’s mother, Sam.
“This is our third year here to come and explore the nature. We come and check out all the environmental activities.” “There are always such creative things and all the animals around are awesome to check out, and to be involved with all the environmental groups,” she said.
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