Submitted Photo With the support of a Cummins Community Development Grant, the Audubon Community Nature Center has five new interpretive signs for their trails. The one pictured relates to the deer exclosures – areas fenced to keep deer out – and describes the impact deer have on forests.

The Audubon Community Nature Center has added new new trail signs promises to enhance its visitor experience.

A Cummins Community Development Grant has helped Audubon purchase five new signs. Three signs relate to ACNC’s deer exclosures — areas fenced to keep deer out — and show how much impact deer browse has on the understory of forests. Another is about the ponds and the impact/threat that water chestnut, an aquatic invasive species, has had on ACNC’s property, and one is about the hemlock forest that was partially treated with a preventative spray to protect it from the invasive insect hemlock wooly adelgid.

Additional signs were purchased and installed around the new wildlife habitat to introduce visitors to Audubon’s newest animal ambassador, an American Kestrel now on display named Cricket.

In 2020, Cummins funded Spatterdock Bridge repairs and an Adirondack shelter on the yellow trail. Its funding in 2021 provided materials for the new wildlife habitat structure.