Our savannas are filled with both rare and routinely seen birds, animals and plants. Understanding how our landscape looked throughout history and how our ecology evolved has allowed a diversity of species to pour into Kinloch. We planted our first savanna in 2014, and since then we have planted over 200 acres with native flowers and grasses, providing habitat for wildlife, food for pollinators, and a place for species native to our region to proliferate.

Our vision is for these fields to reflect the oak-pine savanna that defined the Virginia Piedmont in the 16th and 17th century, stretching from Georgia to Pennsylvania. These open forests had grassy understories, forming a mosaic of prairie-like grasslands dotted with trees, denser forests, and wetlands.

Due to diverse forces, less than 1% of this ancient and highly biodiverse ecosystem remains in the state. By restoring these prairies, we aim to support the plant and wildlife species that depend on grasslands. This ecosystem increases our resilience in the face of climate change, invasive species, and nitrogen deposition, and provide a variety of food, nesting material, and cover for imperiled grassland birds and pollinators.

We engage ecologists and biologists to perform audits of bird species and help identify native, endangered, and invasive species. Our grasslands have been found to provide habitat for many indicator species including the beaver, red fox, bobcat, fox squirrel, flying squirrel, voles, spring pepper, wood frog, box turtle, burrowing crayfish, multiple bat species, and many pollinator species of bees, butterflies, and moths. Our savannas and native warm-season grass fields are home to a broad spectrum of migratory birds that temporarily call Kinloch Farm home including Bobolinks, Eastern Meadowlark, Yellow-Breasted Chat, Grasshopper Sparrow, Kestrel, Blue Grosbeak, Bald Eagles and many more.

We use prescribed fire, targeted mowing, and specific herbicide applications for invasive species to manage our meadows. Fire was an essential natural process to many of our local ecosystems, promoting fire-adapted native species, preventing invasion of trees into grasslands, removing thatch and providing bare ground for ground-nesting bird brood rearing, and promoting forb diversity.

We work with our research partners at Virginia Working Landscapes, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, and The Clifton Institute to continue to monitor our wildlife populations.