Tags Posts tagged with "Joy Cirigliano"

Joy Cirigliano

'Early Summer at Cedarmere' by Marceil Kazickas
Over 50 local and regional artists featured in group exhibition

Gallery North celebrates the beginning of summer with a new group exhibit, Inside/Out, featuring the artwork that has emerged from Gallery North programs including the recent Wet Paint Festival and workshops at The Studio at Gallery North. The exhibition will be on view from July 7 to August 7. The community is invited to an opening reception will be held on July 7 from 6 to 8 p.m.

‘Shibori Quilt’ by Andrea Baatz

The Wet Paint Festival and workshops at The Studio at Gallery North both serve as creative catalysts for artists, encouraging experimentation, and engaging with and supporting an inclusive, multigenerational artist community. These programs take place both inside the gallery’s Studio space as well as at locations in the broader community, and they often reflect the impact of the ecological, historical and cultural composition of the region on local artists. Whether the subject of the composition or the natural materials used in its creation, nature plays a role in many of the works in Inside/Out.

Inside/Out includes artists Marceil Kazickas, Nancy Bueti-Randall along with over 50 local and regional plein air artists who participated in the 18th annual Wet Paint Festival at the Sherwood Jayne Farm in Setauket. Artists representing the studio programs include John Benevento, Andrea Baatz and more than 20 other local artists working in a wide range of techniques and media, such as shibori dyed textiles, encaustic and intaglio prints.

As a complement to the exhibition, Joy Cirigliano of Four Harbors Audubon Society will present The Importance of Biodiversity in the Urban Forest on July 16 at 6 p.m.. 

This exhibition is generously sponsored by Jefferson’s Ferry, bld Architecture, and Suffolk County’s Department of Economic Development and Planning. The exhibition, reception and lecture will be free and open to the public.

Gallery North is located at 90 North Country Road, Setauket. For more information, call 631-751-2676 or visit www.gallerynorth.org.

Photo by Raina Angelier

By Tara Mae

Communities, both human and otherwise, thrive through connection. Four Harbors Audubon Society celebrates these relationships with a Tree Fest, a community event hosted at Three Village Historical Society, 93 North Country Road in Setauket, on Saturday, May 28, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Visitors will be able to partake in raffles, face painting, arts and crafts, educational exhibits by Avalon Nature Preserve and Living Lands Habitat Garden Design, a live bird presentation by Sweetbriar Nature Center of Smithtown, and other activities.  

During the event, Four Harbors Audubon Society will be giving away native tree and shrub whips procured from the Department of Conservation’s Saratoga Farm. These will include Black Cherry, Pussy Willow, Bare Oak, Beach Plum, Bayberry, Button Bush, and Red Osier Dogwood. In addition, a native plant sale will feature local flora such as shrubs, grasses, and spring/early summer flowering herbaceous plants. 

Board member Sue Avery said that the demand for native plants has increased in recent years as gardeners have become more cognizant of the benefits of growing them. Four Harbors promotes the national Audubon Society’s Plants for Birds initiative, which is an online resource that identifies the best plants for local birds. “We hope to raise awareness on the significance of trees and native plants for our ecosystem and how essential they are for birds,” Avery added.

Native plants are integral to the biosphere and local ecosystems. They provide fruits, berries, and nuts for birds as well as other animals and create a habitat for pollinators and other insects. 

The Tree Fest aligns with the national Audubon Society’s objective of restoring the wildlife and plants that have diminished or disappeared because of climate change, habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, pollution, and other environmental factors. 

“Basically, National Audubon and Audubon New York call this type of work bird-friendly communities work,” President of the Audubon Society Joy Cirigliano said.

Creating and supporting a stable environment for birds is incorporated into the Audubon Society’s mission, which recently launched the Bird Oasis Program that encourages residents to construct habitats in their yards to support bird life. 

“Part of the Audubon Society’s work is to restore as much habitat as possible because when birds thrive, people prosper. Everything in the natural world is connected and the health of one goes hand and with the health of the other,” Cirigliano said. 

Throughout the year, the Audubon Society organizes bird walks, installs native plant gardens in public places, and advocates for open spaces. Such a commitment to the local environment and its inhabitants is a trait Three Village Historical Society (TVHS) Director Mari Irizarry recognizes well. 

“Community is at the core of every program we run at TVHS and, we are absolutely thrilled to host Four Harbors Audubon Society on May 28th for their annual Tree Fest,” Irizarry said. “We support Four Harbors Audubon Society mission to protect and preserve birds, wildlife, and the places and resources needed, for today and tomorrow.”

Admission to the Tree Fest is free with a rain date of May 29. For more information, please visit https://4has.org or call 631-675-1803. 

Four Harbors Audubon Society (4HAS) is launching a brand-new, aptly named, “Bird Oasis” program on March 1. Property owners can now request a consultant from 4HAS to assess the quantity and quality of native plants and eco-friendly practices on the premises to help local bird populations and other wildlife to not just survive, but to thrive. 

If the property qualifies, a certification level is determined and a sign is given to the owner, proclaiming the property a bird- and wildlife-friendly habitat. If the property is not quite ready, or a higher Bird Oasis certification level is sought, the consultant will create a list of improvements for the owner to implement.  

Photos of the finished property are sent back to the 4HAS Bird Oasis team for reassessment. In addition, photos of the most attractive, “birdiest” yards will be featured throughout the year on the chapter’s website. There are also future plans to have a yearly “Best Bird Oasis” contest.

The reasons for this program are abundant.  In suburbia, open space is at a premium and what exists is usually overrun by invasive plant species, creating large areas of low-quality food sources unable to support native wildlife in healthy numbers. Such habitat fragmentation and loss, coupled with climate change and inappropriate environmental practices is causing bird and other wildlife populations to fall into steep decline.

In 2018, the Suffolk County Department of Economic Development & Planning published its 2016 Land Use Study. In the report, Brookhaven Township and Smithtown Township had 27% and 17% recreational and open space, respectively.  The report went on to quantify Brookhaven Township’s residential, commercial, institutional and industrial land use at a bit more than 50%. Smithtown Township in total is a bit higher at 63%. This land is the focus of the Bird Oasis program.

The program takes the concept of a healthy, robust ecosystem and places it directly into the homeowner’s or commercial building’s landscape by requesting property owners use more native plants and incorporate planet-healthy and sustainable practices when creating their outside space. 

By choosing native plants with both excellent habitat services and tidy habits, landscapes that are both attractive and environmentally functional can be created. Bird Oasis consultants will also be looking for habitat features like wood or brush piles, ponds or birdbaths, winter forage in the form of seedheads and the insects found in plant stalks to be left up over the cold months and cut back in the spring, and other important ecoscaping concepts. 

Additionally, the program focuses on environmentally healthy practices, like mulching grass clippings back into lawns, leaving leaves or shredded leaf litter down as, or under, mulch, and using organic slow-release fertilizers. An ecologically balanced yard cures its own ills within a short amount of time, so targeted pest management with organic principals should be used only when insect outbreaks or other issues are severe. 

Chemical fertilizers and pesticides should be avoided on certified properties.  Most insecticides and fungicides are broad spectrum, which kills both the good and the bad. They also seriously harm the soil food web. Additionally, excess nitrogen does not stay in the soil, but runs off or down into the water table — as do chemical pesticides — and causes harmful algal blooms in Long Island bays and estuaries. 

It is hoped that people will see the beauty in these certified properties and notice all of the birds they attract. This will create additional excitement — and habitats —as more people create their own private sanctuaries, which will shift the current landscape paradigm to something more sustainable and environmentally-friendly.

“The potential to reverse the trend is there,” explains Joy Cirigliano, President of 4HAS. “If we can harness our managed landscapes and other properties to provide suitable habitat for our native plants and animals, and make them beautiful at the same time, it will help strengthen and heal our local ecosystem. All of our neighbors will be happy, including the furred and feathered ones.”

The Four Harbors Audubon Society Bird Oasis Program is available to any property within the *4HAS territory, including residential, commercial, industrial and municipal for a fee. The program consists of a one-hour consultation and property assessment and a certification sign.

*4HAS Territory:

Centereach, Coram, East Setauket, Hauppauge, Kings Park, Lake Grove, Middle Island, Miller Place, Mount Sinai , Nesconset, Port Jefferson, Port Jefferson Station, Ridge, Rocky Point, Saint James, Selden. Setauket, Shoreham. Smithtown, Sound Beach, South Setauket, Stony Brook, and Stony Brook Campus.

For more information, visit https://4has.org/bird-oasis after the program launch on March 1. For additional inquiries, please send an email to [email protected].

Four Harbors Audubon Society is a local chapter of the National Audubon Society.  It is affiliated with Audubon New York and is a member of the Audubon Council of New York State. Its mission is to protect and preserve birds, wildlife, and the places and resources needed, for today and tomorrow.