Beakuency welcomes David Newman and Spencer Crawford. David is the co-founder of Arthur’s Point Farm in Ghent, Columbia County, and Spencer is an expert birder with a background in wildlife biology who has spent significant time observing birds on the farm. Arthur’s Point Farm is a native plant nursery that supports ecological agriculture, restores the land, and helps implement natural climate solutions for surrounding farmers and landowners. Their holistic land management has also created thriving habitat for birds, including threatened grassland species like the Grasshopper Sparrow. Among the many factors contributing to this rich biodiversity, the interview highlights intentional hedgerows, a practical approach that enhances farm productivity while supporting insect and bird populations, and a go-to habitat for birders. Spencer shares how avian life benefits from this approach, while David shares the challenges for farmers and the importance of public policy support to achieve long-term environmental outcomes. Their words encourage each one of us in the community to act as land stewards by planting native species and supporting local, resilient agricultural systems.
Birds of Arthur’s Point Farm - Report by Spencer Crawford
Reptiles and Amphibians of Arthur’s Point Farm - Report by Spencer Crawford
This interview was recorded on March 4th, 2026, and originally broadcasted on Wave Farm’s WGXC 90.7FM on March 28th, 2026. The interview and transcript have been edited for length and clarity.
Interview Transcript
Mayuko Fujino: Could you introduce yourselves?
Spencer Crawford: Okay. My name’s Spencer Crawford. I would describe myself as a local naturalist. I have a background in wildlife biology. I worked in avian field tech jobs for about eight years. Now I work at Hawthorne Valley in the produce department. I’m here because my partner and I lived at Arthur’s Point for two years, 2021 and 2022. And while I was there, I documented whatever I could see there. Actually, the reason why I live up here is because we moved up to live on the farm. So, thankful for that too.
David Newman: Well, we’re really thankful for Spencer and his partner Beth, who as he said, worked here for two years, and was a really important part at the early stage of Arthur’s Point Farm.
I’m David Newman, co-founder with my wife Stephanie of Arthur’s Point Farm. This is a second career for both of us. I’m an environmental lawyer and practiced various aspects of litigation and advocacy mainly around fisheries. So not relevant to this, but the background in environmental law was, or environmentalism, I think was key when we moved up here to figuring out how we could establish an agricultural enterprise that was in line with the ecology, that could enhance the surrounding ecology.
And so, not knowing much about farming, having done it ourselves, we started by managing the landscape and starting cutting back invasive species, planting natives as we could, kind of on the side. And then over a period of several years – we’ve been here for 13 years total – we decided to get more serious about it and we transitioned out of our careers, my work in environmental law and Stephanie’s in public health, to focus full time on starting what is now Arthur’s Point Farm, which is a native plant nursery with a focus on ecological restoration, agroforestry and land stewardship, trying to improve the biodiversity and also the productivity of the land. In addition to the nursery products that we sell, we are also planting orchards, mainly of chestnut, but of other nuts and fruits.
We continue to do quite a bit of ecological work as we can every year, in addition to the core commercial farm tasks. So, we choose areas around the farm to clear invasive species, to exclude deer, to plant natives, and then to manage those over the subsequent years. And that’s Arthur’s Point.
MF: Spencer was literally a birder in residence at Arthur’s Point Farm. What species of birds have been seen on Author’s Point Farm, and if there’s any specific highlights that you want to share?
SC: Arthur’s Point is a really cool property, pretty diversified in terms of habitat types. There’s a marsh, there’s functional grassland, there’s interior forest, there’s some conifer forest. In total, I actually logged 125 species there. And that was also when I was doing field work. So I wasn’t even there for some of the major migration movements. But some highlights, I had 21 species of warblers. There’s breeding Prairie Warblers, which is pretty cool. There’s breeding Brown Thrasher, so some shrub land birds. There’s Grasshopper Sparrow, of course, which is really awesome. Eastern Meadowlark, Savannah Sparrow. Breeding American Kestrels. I had Merlins there, not breeding but… and Peregrine Falcon, I even had a Golden Eagle in the winter time. So that’s pretty cool. And you know, some cool winter visitors were Snow Buntings, American Pipits. So just a lot of really cool stuff. Got my life for Philadelphia Vireo there. So yeah, there’s a ton there.
MF: The species that you mentioned include lots of grassland bird species and that leads to the question about the Grasshopper Sparrow, which are generally in decline in New York State. And yet they’re thriving on Arthur’s Point Farm along with the species you mentioned, like kestrel or Eastern Meadowlark. Which aspects of your farm management do you think have contributed most to these birds’ success?
SC: Yeah, and I’ll also go a little bit into Grasshopper Sparrows because it’s a pretty rare bird for this area in New York. From the breeding bird survey from DEC, they’ve calculated from 2000 to 2022 in New York, there’s an annual decline of about 6.4%. But yeah, when I was there, high counts, I probably documented like 9. And I had confirmed breeding behavior, confirmed fledging. And that’s definitely, or most likely, the biggest breeding population in Columbia county and it’s definitely up there for the Hudson Valley.
So I would say Arthur’s Point, they also work in conjunction with Hawthorne Valley and they’ve allotted one section of the property to pasture, I think for Hawthorne Valley’s breeding cattle. So I know two of those pastures are in permanent pasture. There’s probably like 40 acres of pasture there. There’s also an adjacent neighbor with about 200 acres of hay field. All of the breeding activity that I saw was on Arthur’s Point. But you know, I haven’t surveyed beyond. So two of those pastures are in permanent pasture and they’re on a rotational grazing schedule. So it’s pretty light to moderate grazing, which is kind of the level that they can tolerate. And also both farms are organic and not using pesticides. I would say having that working collaboration with Hawthorne Valley and Arthur’s Point has contributed to their success there.
DN: Arthur’s Point Farm has been working in partnership with Hawthorne Valley and our neighbors for almost a decade. And that included, initially, some grazing seasonally. Now there’s a year round herd that overwinters here in a paddock at Arthur’s Point and it includes growing some small grains and also cutting hay on our fields and the adjacent fields occasionally.
But the farm director, Spencer Fenniman at Hawthorne Valley, has an approach and we’ve worked with him and our neighbors where it’s really, it’s in tune with the demands of the local ecosystem to the extent that we can. We’re trying to have productivity in terms of the livestock in that part of the farm and the grains they grow, but to do it in a way that’s holistic and organic and a light footprint on the land. So that has to do with the stocking rates and the grazing pattern. So, you know, obviously overstocking the land, you’re going to have a different impact. The prior farmer that we worked with did just that, so we parted ways with him because he was overgrazing many of the fields. Just too much pressure, especially some steeply sloped areas that we have since excluded entirely.
So there are areas, we call them exclusion zones that are now off limits. Obviously the wetlands are off limits and they have been from the start. But in addition to that, we’ve excluded some of the fields or former fields that really ought not to be fields and we’ve planted native trees and shrubs in those areas and in addition to hedgerows of native trees and shrubs surrounding the pastures.
So there’s much more diversity and there are areas that literally don’t get grazed or mowed sometimes for a complete season. So there’s enough area for these grassland birds to establish, apparently from what we’ve seen. It wasn’t intentional for a specific species. It was more of a holistic management approach. But we’ve witnessed, fortunately with Spencer’s great work and with what we’ve observed over the years, we’ve witnessed more biodiversity, more bird life. And ultimately, it starts with what’s growing here and how we’re managing the land. The birds are here because of the insect population. They’re here and they’re thriving because they have enough to eat and they have the habitat to go about their different life stages.
And so the land management is twofold. One allowing them the habitat they need, but also the biodiversity for the insect populations that they need to survive. So one of the key elements of our management approach has been to eradicate invasives, at least reduce invasives. You can’t really eradicate them. So honeysuckle and wild rose and ailanthus (Tree of heaven), and Autumn Olive, all these other non-natives that we see around the area, we continue to kind of battle with.
And if you don’t replant in this environment, with so many Whitetail deer, you don’t end up with a lot of native regrowth, at least very quickly. So we’ve tried to accelerate that through planting of a lot of diverse species that are native to this area, but haven’t been present here in a long time, at least on our farm. So that is the key, creating this hotspot, this biological hotspot, in line with what Doug Tallamy talks about, which is what we do in our areas, our backyard, our farms, has this massive impact. If we can connect it with our neighbors or people down the road that are doing something similar, we create these pathways of biodiversity to bring back a lot of these species and they can thrive.
And we see that in a short period of time, which is inspiring. You know, we’re not saving the world, but if enough people do this, we actually can reverse the decline in biodiversity in regions and beyond.
MF: One of the elements you just mentioned included hedgerow. And that’s one of the things I wanted to ask you about, because birders often focus on it. And I saw on your website, there was a page about 800 feet of hedgerows project that’s been taking place for a few years now. So I wanted to ask you about how hedgerows support both bird life and sustainable farming practice.
DN: Well, the presence of a lot of hedgerows on farms are those areas on fence lines or adjacent to fence lines that are just kind of not mowed. They’re not managed and they grow up into whatever wants to grow there. In our area with, again with so many White-tailed Deer and the existence of so many of these invasive shrubs, they’re the most aggressive and that’s what tends to grow in those hedgerows, which provides minimal benefit both ecologically and for the surrounding livestock or whatever is happening in those surrounding fields, they don’t tend to grow that large, so they’re not really creating shade or wind block for the farm. They don’t tend to have native fruits or nuts or other forage that would be appealing to livestock or wildlife. So you really don’t get much. So the idea of a hedgerow that’s deliberate is to plant native species that will serve a structural role in the farm, meaning it will block wind to prevent fields from drying out, will create shade. And we’ll get to that elevation needed to do that, the height needed to do that, but at the same time providing potential forage for livestock, but at the very least providing native habitat. And species of Prunus and Quercus are the most popular spots for so many of our insects that support so many of the bird life.
So those are the species that we like to plant and a lot of other shrubby things that depending on the wet, how wet it is or what have you. So, you know, dogwoods, fast growing willows, poplar, other things like that that will establish quickly at the lower level of the hedge along with other species that will create more of a canopy.
And you’re not talking about a very wide area. You’re not talking about necessarily taking anything away from the existing farm. You’re enhancing the farm with those benefits that I mentioned, but without actually taking more real estate away from the fields, because those areas already are lost and forgotten. So what you’re doing is rediscovering them.
Now one of the questions is how do farmers actually do this? Because it’s not core to their farm enterprise to do these types of plantings. It’s a significant amount of work. And how do they pay for that? When farms are already struggling with trying to make ends meet on their core focused projects and what they’re growing and what they’re raising. And there are funding sources out there directly intended to establish these types of ecological corridors on farms from NRCS, the Natural Resource Conservation Service of USDA, from private sources of funding.
The DEC has programs as well, the Department of Environmental Conservation in New York, for trees that can be made available very cheaply as well as for other expenses related to planting. That really is essential because there’s an interest among a lot of farmers. There’s a benefit long term to create more shade for livestock and to block a cold winter wind, or to block a wind that might be drying out a field or blowing away a recently tilled field soils.
There are a lot of indirect benefits to these thriving hedgerows, but getting them established takes time, money and focus. So farmers need assistance there and those programs need to be robust to help farmers access those resources.
MF: So it’s not just all about farmers having to make sacrifices in order to help birds, but there’s some benefit to their own operation as well.
DN: That’s right. To enhance the biodiversity in a way and also to create more resilience on the farm from weather events, to reduce the amount of erosion and to hold more water on a farm, not have it run off as quickly in a dry season. All of these things have direct benefits to the water table, to the farms, their commercial enterprises.
The problem is they’re indirect benefits that ecosystem services that take time to establish, time and money to establish before you actually experience the benefit. And the benefit can be subtle over a long period of time. So there needs to be an intention of the farmer to want to do this. It’s not just money. They need to dedicate some time to do it and thinking more long term, as many farmers do. And they need help with the resources to actually put these plantings in place and take care of them until they’re established. Once they’re established, then the benefits come and there really aren’t additional costs.
MF: In terms of birds, these hedgerows would be a place to see stuff like Common Yellowthroats, insect eating birds? What kind of birds did you see particularly around the hedge?
SC: There were definitely breeding Brown Thrashers in some of the hedgerows which, in New York, are designated a high priority species. I would say that a lot of the common stuff like Gray Catbirds, just the typical shrubby birds. I read a study of researchers putting hedgerows in place in Canada and in agricultural settings, and they found that, in general, it did increase the biodiversity of birds. Specifically shrub land birds of course, but also forest birds would come in and forage in these hedgerows.
They did have a few caveats, I feel like you need to assess the whole landscape when you’re implementing these hedgerows, because if you put them in a particular spot in, say, a grassland, it’s a perceived edge to these grassland birds. So it could actually deter them from using that grassland, because it makes the field smaller to them. But with strategic placement, you can definitely avoid that. I guess another thing that can be a concern, if you have high Brown-headed Cowbird pressure, it does encourage them. But for the most part, it’s increasing biodiversity.
MF: I used to see farming mainly as a way to supply goods for our homes and lives, like food and stuff. And industrial agriculture often comes with environmental cost, and for many of consumers, the affordable food would justify those trade offs. So it’s been exciting for me to learn that local farms like Arthur’s Point Farm, not only doing the farm operations for people, but that could also support wildlife. But at the same time I understand that farmers face real constraint from markets or costs and policy. What can as a consumer or a community member can do to support this shift, so that we can support farmers to feel more encouraged and feel supported to incorporate more social and environmental benefits into their operations?
DN: Obviously, we should tell our representatives to make sure the programs that support farmers, and these ecosystem services that they provide should be fully funded. Especially the time right now, where federal funding is being cut all over the place. Make sure that that continues to occur by telling our federal and state officials to continue with those programs. Because they are very important not only to what’s happening on the farm and biodiversity, but our water, our air. They’re very important in our attempt to mitigate the effects of climate change. They have broad impact. So that’s the first thing.
The second thing is, I think, more fluency, I think the more people that pick up a book by Doug Tallamy or someone else that’s very accessible, that talks about how what you do in your backyard matters and what it is, what you can do really would help. What I do in my backyard, as small as it may be or as big as it may be, matters. And I learn and I then talk about that with others. So the idea of putting in ornamental plantings, non-native ornamental plantings, when you have the option of planting natives that will provide food that will provide attractiveness to people and wildlife just the same — this is an opportunity to really expand what we’re doing in this area. And every person that contributes to that will add to the total benefit of what we see in our area in terms of the resilience of the landscape and the biodiversity, the number of birds that we see all over, that’s a public resource.
Private land comes with responsibility. It’s not just that I own it. Everyone that has ownership, however you define that, we’re only here for a little while, right? Then we’re gone. But while we’re here, we can have a big impact, positive or negative, on the landscape.
So with our time, when we are the stewards, the official stewards of a piece of land, we are responsible for that land. And understanding what you do there, big or small, is really important. Everyone can plant native wildflower or two, everyone can cut back an invasive species. It doesn’t need to be grand in scale to have an impact, if everyone’s focused on it, or most of us are focused on it, or many of us are focused on it, or one out of ten of us are focused on it, as long as there’s a critical number of people doing it. And I know there’s a lot of interest.
So how does that translate to what farmers do? Farmers are working really hard to grow the food that we eat and to do it in the most responsible way they can. So putting more burdens on them to bear the needs of society more broadly is difficult. But where there is a win-win in cases where they can plant certain things on their land that will help their farms be more resilient and be more productive and where they can get the support to do those things, those projects, those plantings, then you’re talking about an opportunity for building more value on that farm that really makes sense to the farmer along with the broader community benefits and the broader community that will benefit from that.
So that’s what we should be focused on. I think the individual should do what they can in their backyard and we should help farmers do what they can. Things that they can do that will help build their resilience, the biodiversity on their farms, but also those things that benefit the livestock or the health of the soil, the health of the crops that grow up, the amount of water they can hold on that farm. If you’re talking the language of improved productivity and you can do it in a way where it enhances biodiversity, then we’re talking about common language and common benefits. And we can really align a lot of these efforts.
MF: One of the points you brought up, being more informed in terms of policy. What’s a way to be informed in terms of policy around nature conservation, farmers, what would be the resource you recommend?
DN: There are so many organizations out there that focus on particular areas of policy that are important. Social, environmental, community or organizations, food assistance, food security organizations, poverty organizations. So for every one of those areas, and they’re so broad, even within those areas, there are organizations that focus on policies. So I think if you have an interest in policy, it’s finding those reputable organizations that do that work and then reading their website, reading their newsletter, becoming a member paying attention, making a phone call to your representative and telling them what you think about those policies.
And that works. And we need that, that civic engagement that’s really important. And many of us are either in addition to that or apart from that, there are other things that people can do that are really meaningful. And to the points that we’re making on this call, I think it’s a lot of us here in Columbia county are interested. We’re here because of the land. We’re here because of the abundance of forests and streams and the beauty of the landscape as well as the agriculture that’s here. And a lot of us like to get our hands dirty. And that’s an opportunity, whether it’s in your backyard or it’s through a conservation organization like the Columbia Land Conservancy or someone else.
There are opportunities to volunteer, to plant things, to steward land. And in terms of learning — climate resilient species of trees, for example, the U.S. forest Service has a Climate Change Atlas. I wrote a blog on it, you can check it out on our website. But I don’t know if they’re still funding it. I think they are. I hope they are. That climate atlas looked at many criteria for determining the resilience and the adaptability of dozens over 100 species, eastern forest species, native species in the US. You put your zip code in, or your zone, and it will tell you which trees are most adaptable and least adaptable, which species to plant. That’s a great way to start to say okay, what’s native and what do I want to plant?
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is a good resource. That website is very consumer friendly, a lot of information on native plants or the characteristics of plants. They have a lot of non-natives on there too.
And go to your local nursery. Not just Arthur’s Point, there are other nurseries as well. I would love to have you here, come to one of our nursery days, talk to us about what you’re interested in and learn about the native plants that these nurseries are growing in. Demand that the nursery that you go to in your community that they actually sell native plants, true natives, not nativar, which are kind of a hybrid blend of natives and not quite native. Native adjacent.
So anyway, the point is I think everyone can start with something that's manageable. It’s hard if we set the goal at something that seems overwhelming. And to some people it’s policy, and to others it’s planting a wildflower in their backyard or going to a community planting or going to a meeting and learning about these things, or going on a website. Or even better than that, coming to the farm and learning in person, talking to people and seeing these plants.
So we encourage that this summer, starting in May, we’ll have open nursery days a couple days a week. And we encourage you to come by as well. There are a lot of programs in these areas, a lot of organizations that are doing various programs to help educate people as well.
MF: Well, thank you so much.
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Interview with Spencer Fenniman (Hawthorne Valley Farm): Creating Bird Habitat through Biodynamic Farming
At Hawthorne Valley Farm in Ghent, Columbia County, biodynamic farming weaves together birds, insects, shrubs, cows, people, and more—each playing a role in the health of the farm’s living ecosystem. Spencer Fenniman, the farm manager, shares insights into this interdependence, land management practices that sustain it, and two decades of work to create bird habitat on the farm.
