Sundays at Two:

Carnivorous Plants with Matt Kaelin

Co-sponsored with North Shore Land Alliance

Sunday, July 12th - Special Time @ 11:00 AM!

Long Pond Greenbelt Nature Center

1061 Bridgehampton/Sag Harbor Turnpike

The beautiful Long Pond Greenbelt is known for its wealth of rare plants, animals and ecological communities. Explore some of Long Island’s carnivorous plants and a diversity of other plants and wildlife at Crooked Pond and along its shore. We will start with a presentation at the Long Pond Greenbelt Nature Center, then walk from there to Crooked Pond. Keep in mind that parts of the trail are a little steep.

Please note that this Sundays at Two starts at 11:00 AM.

This event is free, but advance registration is requested. Please RSVP by emailing: info@longpondgreenbelt.org

About Matt Kaelin

Matthew Kaelin is the author of The Sinister Beauty of Carnivorous Plants and has over two decades of experience cultivating carnivorous plants. Beginning in early 2012, he also engaged in a continuous, comprehensive evaluation of the habitats of native carnivorous plants of Long Island, NY, where he is credited for discovering populations of the Sundew hybrid, Drosera rotundifolia x intermedia, which were the first recorded observations of these plants in New York State.

Update on Eastern Box Turtle Monitoring Project from Anna Thonis, PhD

Year 2 of our Eastern Box Turtle Monitoring Project was a great success! This season, we captured, measured, uniquely notched, and released 77 Eastern Box Turtles across two South Fork study sites.

One of our sites was newly added this year and proved exceptionally productive, with 45 turtles encountered in a single day -- the busiest survey day our team has recorded to date.

At our second site, which was first surveyed last year, we recaptured only two turtles that had been marked during the previous field season. While this might seem surprising, it is actually very encouraging. Last year, we captured, marked, and released 52 individual turtles at this site, yet only two of those same turtles were encountered again this year. This low recapture rate suggests that the local population is likely much larger than the number of turtles we have documented so far. Given the substantial declines Eastern Box Turtle populations have experienced across Long Island over the past several decades, these findings provide exciting evidence that this population may be thriving.

We are already looking ahead to next year and can't wait to get back into the field to see what we'll find!

Thank You to Tony Valderrama, FLPG's June Sundays at Two Lecturer and Guest Artist

Tony Valderrama led another wonderful interactive Sundays at Two program on June 7. Inspired by the cultural significance of the talking stick and how it was used in Native American circles to ensure that every voice was heard with honor, participants created their own unique talking sticks using North Fork driftwood, colorful beads, natural pigments, and feathers.

Dragonfly Day 2026

Dragonfly Day was once again recognized by the State of New York on June 13th and FLPG was given a proclamation by State Assemblyman Tommy John Schiavoni. Many dragonflies and damselflies joined us during our dragonfly hunt after an informative lecture by SOFO educator Moe Kennedy and dragonfly and glow-bug crafts were created with the help of CMEE and the Artists Nest. Thank you to all of our volunteers: Dai Dayton, Sharone Einhorn, Gloria Feuer, Raelyn Hansen, Doreen Johnston, Dayton Mc Dermott, Jean Mc Dermott and Jody Winer of FLPG; Melanie Meade, Crystal Possehl-Oakes and Frank Quevedo of SOFO; Hanna Quinn of CMEE; and Tonito Valderrama of The Artists Nest.