Photo: Tiger Swallowtail, Betsy Martin
Betsy Martin
I ended up on the board of the ASNV because I was seduced by a creek.
In 1994 my husband Paul and I moved to Fairfax County from the District. We moved to a house that sits directly across the street from Little Hunting Creek, a freshwater tidal creek that flows into the Potomac River and was once part of George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. In fact, he called his estate his “Plantation on Little Hunting Creek.”
I began noticing all the beautiful, blooming wetland plants and the birds that lived and nested in the marshland, and trying to figure out what they all were. When I came home from work, I’d sit on a bench overlooking the creek. If I watched long enough, I’d see something that I’d never seen before—an aerial battle between an eagle and an osprey, or a mother wood duck and 16 ducklings darting out from the shoreline and making a beeline for the cover of the spadderdock. I began my own little restoration project along our shoreline, replacing the scraggly lawn with the native plants and trees and grasses I was learning about. We put a conservation easement on the parcel across the street so that it would remain habitat for wildlife instead of someday becoming a house for humans.
When I retired from the Census Bureau in 2007, I enrolled in the inaugural Fairfax Virginia Master Naturalist training class. This wonderful program further opened my eyes to nature and how its interdependent parts fit together. It also introduced me to people, knowledge, and activities far from my experience. Before long I got involved with Audubon at Home (AAH), which aims to help property owners create habitat for birds and other wildlife in their own yards. I certified our yard as a Wildlife Sanctuary in 2011. Certification requires adopting healthy yard practices and observing 10 Sanctuary Species using a yard to forage, breed, and nest.
But I didn’t stop with my own yard. I signed up to be an AAH Ambassador. Ambassadors visit properties at the request of homeowners to advise them on native plantings and other habitat improvements, and to certify properties as Wildlife Sanctuaries. Later I volunteered to serve as coordinator for Fairfax County, and eventually became AAH co-director (with Barbara Tuset). In 2020 I joined the ASNV board, which offers opportunities for broader involvement in environmental advocacy, habitat stewardship, and advancing conservation goals in northern Virginia.
Tiger Swallowtail, Betsy Martin
For me, AAH has been a personal journey of discovery, from learning about native plants, wildlife, and their habitat needs, to creating natural habitat and then watching birds, butterflies, and frogs show up in my own yard, to helping homeowners engage with the nature in their yards and experience the delight of gardening for wildlife. During the pandemic, when people couldn’t travel and tried to restrict their in-person contact with others, our yards and the outdoors became a source of respite and relief. And requests for AAH assistance grew. Many people in our rapidly urbanizing area became newly aware of how much they needed nature.
I love to visit people, walk their yards, and help them figure out how to turn their yards into better habitat. I can see when the light goes on and people get it and are inspired by what they can do. In these dark times, it is comforting and empowering to be able to act on a small scale to achieve something good, even if it doesn’t solve the world’s problems.
AAH is going strong, almost entirely driven by the commitment and determination of volunteers. Since 2010, we have certified 8,631 acres as Wildlife Sanctuaries in all kinds of places including residences, schools, churches, retirement communities, stormwater ponds, and Homeowner Association common areas. Last year, we certified our 1,000th property. ASNV’s AAH has expanded to six counties: Arlington/Alexandria, Fairfax, Prince William, Rappahannock, Fauquier, and Loudoun (run by partner Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy).
I hope that if you haven’t done so already you will let AAH open the door to stewardship and engagement with nature in your own backyard by requesting a home visit from one of our Ambassadors.