Shelley Harms wins award for her nature photography

By Colleen Gundlach

Shelley Harms is no stranger to conservation and land trust issues. A longtime Norfolk resident, she has served on several land trusts in the region and now has won a first-place award for her nature photography.

Each year, the Connecticut Land Conservation Council partners with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) to sponsor a photo contest to highlight properties protected under the DEEP’s Open Space and Watershed Land Acquisition Grant Program (OSWA).  Harms entered a photo of Big Bluestem that she had taken in Hurlbut Field in Winchester Center. For this she was awarded Best in Show. Her photo will be used in upcoming DEEP and OSWA publications.

Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii)is a grass native to many parts of the eastern United States, including northwestern Connecticut, and is one of the native species reintroduced to Hurlbut Field through reseeding by the Winchester Land Trust.  The winning photo underscores the success the land trust group has had in purchasing and protecting such areas.

“I never expected a picture of grass to be a first-place winner,” says Harms, but just a look at the photographic angle and beauty of the subject enables one to understand why it won the award.   

Harms has been passionately involved in conservation and ecological issues for more than a decade.  She served on the Winchester Land Trust’s board for 13 years and is now on the Norfolk Land Trust board. She currently serves as the part-time executive director of the Cornwall Land Trust and the Salisbury Association Land Trust.  With her background as an attorney, Harms has brought her talents not only as a seed planter and grant writer but also helps with technical compliance work for these trusts, assisting with the accreditation process.

Land trusts are not Harms’s only interest. She joined Norfolk Now’s  founders early on as executive editor and helped form its nonprofit corporation; she ran the After School Program at Botelle School when her children attended; she was a long-time volunteer at Aton Forest; and she serves on the Conservation Commission in town.

With the assistance of a grant from OSWA, Hurlbut Field was purchased by the Winchester Land Trust in 2009 from Phil and Marion Hurlbut. The grant process took several years, but this beautiful property, located at the corner of Grantville Road and West Street in Winchester Center, is now open to the public and is one of the Winchester Land Trust’s most popular hiking places, with plenty of parking spaces, an information kiosk and trails that parallel Grantville Road, cross a field and eventually connect to a state-maintained trail on the shores of Lake Winchester.  

Houlihan Woods is another Winchester Land Trust property that is open to the public. Located on the former property of the John Houlihan family on South Road in Winchester Center, this majestic open space was purchased through another OSWA grant. “The little trusts in the northwest corner towns don’t have a lot of money,” says Harms. “OSWA grants allow us to pay landowners who want to sell their land into conservancy but can’t afford to just donate it. It is a big plus for the landowner in these economic times.”

Several properties in Norfolk were also conserved in part due to the availability of OSWA grants, including Pine Mountain—the 311-acre former Girl Scout Camp property on Grantville Road in Norfolk—and Tait Trail, which runs from Grantville Road to the end of Winchester Road, crossing the Mad River.

Harms stresses that the OSWA grants are not totally free money. The land trusts need to raise matching funds in order to secure the grants. While some funds from federal and state programs such as the Community Investment Act help support the projects, donations are still a big part of the budget. To access trail maps for land trust properties or to make a donation, go to http://www.winchesterlandtrust.orgor http://www.norfolklandtrust.org.