From Prep to Plate – Dairy Delights
Join Registered Dietician Jessica Pelletier, and learn the many benefits of dairy products while testing yourself in the kitchen with a yogurt-based dip challenge. Participants will work in teams to...
Join Registered Dietician Jessica Pelletier, and learn the many benefits of dairy products while testing yourself in the kitchen with a yogurt-based dip challenge. Participants will work in teams to...
Rewilding Your Yard Interested in rewilding your yard? Unsure about what is involved or where to start? Join local naturalists Cathy Smith and Joe Bear as they walk you through...
Fireside Yoga Tuesdays, February 136:30 – 7:30 p.m.Join our community for a Fireside Yoga Series at New Pond Farm this February. Gather indoors by the crackling fireplace as you immerse...
Pruning 101 Bring your pruners and loppers and learn from the pros the why, when, and how to properly prune your trees and shrubs. Join Master Gardener Claire Matzke and...
Astronomy: Viewing the Night Sky Join our knowledgeable team of volunteer astronomers out on Astronomy Hill for views of constellations, star clusters, planets, and more! Gaze through telescopes, hear stories...
Knitting by the Fire Join us by the fire for this two-session course (the second date is March 3), where you will create a beautiful cable knit cowl while learning...
Nature Book Club-‘Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden’ In Partnership with The Mark Twain Library! Delve more deeply into nature, ecology and wildlife with a new book club...
Full Moon Hike Bundle up and join us for an outdoor hike illuminated by the glow of the Snow Moon. Together we will experience the magic of the woods at...
Backyard Syruping Workshop Have you ever wanted to make your own maple syrup? Let us teach you each step of this sweet process and review the materials needed for backyard...
Join our community for a Fireside Yoga Series at New Pond Farm this February. Gather indoors by the crackling fireplace as you immerse yourself in meditation, energetic vinyasa flows, and...
Fireside Yoga Join our community for a Fireside Yoga Series at New Pond Farm this February. Gather indoors by the crackling fireplace as you immerse yourself in meditation, energetic vinyasa...
Celebrate a delicious New England Tradition! Start the morning with a homemade breakfast of bacon and pancakes topped with fresh berries and our very own maple syrup. Then bundle up...
Paint & Sip Enjoy a fun night out as our artist instructor leads you on a step-by-step journey to create a wonderful masterpiece inspired by New Pond Farm’s beautiful landscape....
Woodcock Walk (3/9/24) “Peent, peent”, the nasally call of the American Woodcock is hard to mistake. Join NPF Board Member Bruce Ward as we look and listen for this sometimes...
WOODCOCK WALK (3/16) “Peent, peent”, the nasally call of the American Woodcock is hard to mistake. Join NPF Board Member Bruce Ward as we look and listen for this sometimes...
101 Marchant Rd West, Redding, CT 06896
Phone: (203) 938-2117
Email: info@newpondfarm.org
Learning Center Hours: 9 AM-5 PM
Dairy Annex Hours: 7 AM – 7 PM
© 2025 New Pond Farm Education Center, All Rights Reserved. Website by Social Graces Communications.
An Avian Success Story: In the early 1900s European Starlings and English Sparrows were introduced into the northeast. For decades, these aggressive cavity nesters out-competed the more docile bluebirds for nest sites, so their populations were in serious decline. Environmental groups and individuals came to the rescue. Wooden nesting boxes were installed throughout the area and thankfully the Bluebirds proved to be quite adaptable, successfully raising their families in these new homes.
As you walk through our lower pastures and wildflower meadow, you may be fortunate enough to see bluebirds sitting on our nesting boxes. The males have brilliant blue plumage on their wings and back, a rusty colored breast and sides, and white undersides. The wings and back of the females are a more subtle grayish blue.
Once you learn the warbling vocalizations of these members of the thrush family, you will hear them frequently throughout your walk.
In addition to the many insects that make up their summer diet, our bluebirds feast on the berries of native shrubs throughout the fall and winter. We have planted stands of native winterberries (Ilex verticillate) and flowering dogwoods (Cornus florida) to add to our native staghorn sumacs (Rhus typina), and elderberries (Sambucus nigra).
Another bird that DEEP considers a species of special concern is the Purple Martin. Once commonly seen flying over open agricultural lands across the State, these aerial acrobats have been in decline for decades due to lack of open fields and pastures, lack of suitable nesting sites, and competition from aggressive non-native European starlings and house sparrows
For several decades, conservation efforts have been in place across the State to bring back the Purple Martins, and efforts are paying off! Arrangements of specially-sized, artificial hollow gourds have been hung from tall poles in appropriate habitats. Groups like the CT Audubon Society have well established banding programs, and DEEP reports that the Martin populations are on the rise.
New Pond Farm’s pastures seem like a perfect habitat, so during the nesting season, we too have positioned an arrangement of hanging gourds near the white fenceline along the pasture. If you venture over here during the early morning hours in the spring, you may hear the loop of pre-recorded twittering calls that we play in an attempt to attract any migrants. So far, we have just attracted a few scouting birds. Hopefully the spring of 2024 may be our lucky year
Back in the 1980s, a pair of kestrels nested reliably in a box positioned in the large sugar maple along our Farm Road. These exquisite, robin-sized, falcons were an absolute joy to behold as they would soar, hover, and plunge over the pastures and lawns searching for insects, small mammals, amphibians, and reptiles.
For many years we have been without a nesting pair, and for the past several decades DEEP has listed American Kestrels as a species of special concern.
Working with Art Gingert, who is well known in the State for his decades of d devotion to reestablishing nesting pairs of kestrels, we have installed a kestrel box on the eastern side of our pasture. No takers yet, but the box will be back up early in the spring of 2024, and we are hopeful.