S2S supports the National Forest Service in Blacksburg, Virginia by providing brand new American Kestrel nest boxes.

One of the newly installed nest boxes!

Some months back, we posted an update to our kestrel nest box work in Manassas to a Virginia Birding Facebook group. That post was seen by Kirk Gardner, a wildlife biologist and veteran working for the National Forest Service in Blacksburg, Virginia. He expressed interest in extending our box network near him. We’ve since begun setting up citizen science opportunities in the area to offer to student veterans and alumni at Virginia Tech, and today, we delivered and installed two kestrel boxes on prime habitat! This work is like planting seeds: seeds of a new partnership with the NFS, seeds to help support the future for declining kestrels, and seeds of a foundation of long term projects to engage veterans and the local community for years to come.