Three new sugar maples have been planted at the Lot 3 picnic area, to replace recently removed dead/dying ash and balsam poplar trees. Our thanks to Tom Wolfe (Wolfe Horticulture) for his gracious pricing and assistance with planting. And our thanks to Peter and Jean Ann Nowak for their generous […]
Yearly Archives: 2025
14 posts
The Songbird Garden, located adjacent to the Visitors Center, was conceived and designed by NWS volunteers Helen Kenny and Maureen Flatley in Spring, 2022. This was the ‘capstone’ project for their Wisconsin Master Naturalist training. The garden has now blossomed through four summer seasons. Recently, a series of interpretive signs were installed […]
The southern half of Newport State Park has been closed to hiking and camping due to significant damage and unsafe conditions which resulted from an extraordinary wind storm event on Saturday afternoon (August 9, 2025). This annotated map graphic shows the currently affected trails and campsites: Monarch Trail, Poetry Trail, and […]
Text and photo by Beth Bartoli,Newport Park Naturalist When I have a spare moment, one of the things I like to do is wander through the Songbird Garden that is outside the office building entrance to see what is happening out there. There are different things blooming throughout the growing […]
As park visitors head off to the beach and hiking trails from the Lot 3 parking lot, they will see, and hopefully use, a newly installed interpretive boot brush station. (There is a second one that has been installed where the Monarch, Poetry, and Newport trails converge.) NWS volunteers have […]
by Maureen Flatley, Deb Ford, and Rick Foster Our ongoing work to limit the spread of invasive plant species at Newport continues in 2025. Thanks so much to everyone who has answered the call to help with invasive species remediation! It is not very sexy work, but it helps us […]
NWS and Newport State Park were well represented at the Ellison Bay Day parade and festival on Saturday, June 28th. We had a perfect weather-day to celebrate our wonderful northern Door community and to chat with visitors about the work we do in support of the park. Many thanks to all […]
In the fall of 2024, our team of NWS Master Naturalists started on another garden project at Newport. They began transforming an uninteresting patch of grass at the entrance to the park into a much more welcoming native garden. The early stages of their efforts are documented here. Their work […]
Eighty 3rd-graders who attend Sunrise Elementary School in Sturgeon Bay had a class field trip to Newport State Park recently. Split into two groups, they all learned about the forest ecology of northern Door County while hiking the Fern Trail loop. They then learned about the importance of pollinator insects […]
NWS member and volunteer Jim Ryan was hiking in Newport recently and…well…here is his story. “I went for a hike today at Newport. I was on the Europe Bay trail, about half way up to Europe Bay Road from parking lot 3, and I ran into this group of Boy […]
DNR approves Master Plan variancefor proposed improvements to theDark Sky Viewing Area at Newport SP After reviewing public input, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has approved a Master Plan variance which will allow improvements in the day-use area near Parking Lot 3 at Newport SP. These NWS-planned improvements will address concerns that NWS and park staff have with […]
Photos and textDeb Ford April and May are good months to keep watch for Bonaparte’s Gulls along the Lake Michigan shoreline of Door County. They are heading north to their breeding grounds in the boreal and taiga habitats of Canada and Alaska. These gulls tend to migrate in large groups in the […]
On April 6, a day-long chainsaw certification course was held at Newport. Eight NWS volunteers and two Friends of Rock Island volunteers participated. NWS underwrote 75% of the course cost for our NWS volunteers. Most of the 26 miles of trails in Newport are found in forested areas of the […]
Wild Tomato Pizza chose NWS as the beneficiary of their “Donation Creation” pizza sales during the month of February. For each “Gabagool” pizza ordered, $1 was donated to NWS. We are extremely grateful to receive their donation of $123. Several NWS board members and friends enjoyed the Gabagool pizza at […]