We have “abundant wildlife, a little bit of everything,” Belle View teacher Carolyn Bush told a group of community members eager to create a wildlife sanctuary and outdoor classroom.

Bush invited the Belle View Elementary School’s staff to meet Wednesday morning before school with Cliff Fairweather, a naturalist from the Audubon Society of Northern Virginia, and 14 people, including principal Tom Kuntz, showed up.

As Fairweather was describing ways of creating natural habitat he glimpsed a hawk zooming by the window. “Yes, we have a Cooper’s hawk,” Bush said. 

The teachers and students have also seen red foxes, deer, groundhogs, turtles, lizards, skinks, frogs, and many insects and other birds on the property.  In the course of an hour, four gaggles of geese flew over honking.

Bush is pulling together teachers, the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), the school administration, and community groups to seek funding for outdoor learning projects.  Fairweather explored approaches for transforming the school grounds into a haven for birds, butterflies, other wildlife and native plants so that teachers can use the grounds to teach science and other subjects.  

“We can get kids engaged,” he said.

In addition to planting trees and installing rain barrels, the Belle View team has already installed bat and bird boxes, put up purple martin houses and created “no-mow” areas.  On Earth Day, they will plant a butterfly garden.  In one area, soggy from Fort Hunt Road stormwater runoff, they hope to create a vernal pool to attract lizards, frogs, and salamanders.  

Touring the grounds, Fairweather told PTA president Cindy Anderson that rocks provide good basking spots for butterflies and logs are “good cover” for lizards.

Observing what he called “lots of bird traffic,” Fairweather promised to return once the snow is gone to help develop plans.  He has worked with the Browne Academy on Telegraph Road, where teachers and parents have planted a thriving meadow, he said.  

“When it was turf, it was silent there,” he explained.  “Now in the summer it is full of grasshoppers.”

The Audubon Society’s Audubon at Home program helps property owners create environmentally-friendly landscapes to sustain native plants and animals in Northern Virginia.  When owners “embrace the healthy yard pledge,” they agree to reduce pesticide and fertilizer use, conserve water, remove invasive plants, plant native species, and support birds and other wildlife.