Weekend Picks: Spring Festival and 5Ks

Plus, the Reston Farmers Market opens!

The first weekend in May is full of goings-on in Reston. Here's a few events to add to your weekend plan. Saturday: Reston Association Spring Festival 1 to 5 p.m. at Walker Nature Education Center. For more information, visit Spring Festival. There will be live entertainment, crafts and nature activities at this free event. Also,  Reston Environmental Action (REACT) will collect old, used denim that will be sent to the organization Cotton, From Blue to Green where it will be recycled into environmentally-safe insulation for home-building organizations such as Habitat for Humanity. For more information, Click here Saturday: Reston Farmers Market at Lake Anne Plaza opens for the season, 8 a.m. Saturday: Good Dogz Pet Fiesta at Reston Town …

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Stella McEnearny

5:37 pm on Thursday, May 2, 2013

Wouldn't miss it for the world, John! We've been counting the weeks 'til this year's opening...and the hush over the crowd when they hear you ring that mighty, mighty bell! It's the best - thanks for all you and Fran do for us, by the way!   more ›

Photos: Reston's Arbor Day 2013

Volunteers joined Reston Association staff at RA's annual Arbor Day celebration at Walker Nature Education Center Monday. Reston is a Tree City USA as certified by the National Arbor Day Foundation. The day included a special Tree City USA flag raising and planting of trees, shrubs and wildflowers.  

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Walk The Golf Course and Get to Know Nature

Two programs - including one at Reston National Golf Course - look at Reston's community of wildlife, people and places.

Reston National Golf Course is not just for golfers - it is also home to a variety of wildlife, plants and trees. The Reston Historic Trust invites you to join them on a nature walk at 1 p.m. Saturday to get to know some of the flora and fauna of Reston National Golf Course. The golf course has been in the news recently because of a potential plan for redevelopment that would likely interfere with some of the course's wildlife. Read more about the story on our Reston National Golf Course Redevelopment topic page. RN Golf Management, the course owners, will go before the Fairfax County Board of Zoning Appeals on May 22. They are appealing a 2012 county zoining decision that said the course is not classified as residential.  Saturday's walk …

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Count Shows 37 Bird Types in Reston

Annual Great Backyard Bird Count shows who is living in Reston trees.

Reston residents counted 253 birds from 37 species as part of the 2013 Great Backyard Bird Count. The Walker Nature Education Center has participated in the national GBBC since 2010. It is an annual four-day event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are, says Abby Stocking, environmental education specialist at Walker Nature Center. The GBBC is led by the Cornell Lab of Orinithology and National Audubon Society, with Canadian partner Bird Studies Canada and sponsorship from Wild Birds Unlimited. The count took place Feb. 15 through 18. For the first time since the count was started, bird watchers from anywhere in the world with Internet access could submit their …

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Weekend Pick: Toadie and the Snake Storytime

Reston author - and a live snake - at Walker Nature Education Center event Saturday.

Reston author Ellice Rosenberg Stern will read her new book Toadie and the Snake to children in a special storytime event at Walker Nature Education Center on Saturday. Stern has been a Reston resident for 20 years, and says she has always been enchanted by the wildlife around her home. Stern was encouraged by a childhood friend to turn the story of Toadie - a toad who worries when a new snake moves into town - into a children's book. The event begins at 11 a.m. at Walker Nature Education Center. It will include a reading as well as meeting a live snake and making a toad abode. Copies of the book will be for sale at the book signing after the program. The event is for children ages 3 to 8 years. Cost is $5/child for RA members and $8/child…

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Nature House Earns Tree Preservation Honor

Commitment to building while saving trees earns Reston Association project a county award.

Reston Association's Nature House at the Walker Nature Education Center has been awarded a Tree Preservation Award by Fairfax County. Nature House earned the honor because of its commitment to keeping existing trees. The project, which was completed in 2009, is on a 72-acre woodland where only 1 percent of the land has been cleared for building and parking. Fairfax County urban forester Hugh Whitehead, who nominated the project, said the building was set within a small, previously cleared area where additional clearing was limited to only a few trees that had roots that would be impacted by excavation or grading. “The protected woodlands are as much a part of the Walker Nature Center as the Nature House itself, and a valuable resource for …

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Dead Man Near Reston Path IDed by Police

Former Restonian Christoph Walker died of natural causes, Fairfax County police said.

Fairfax County Police have identified the man found dead near the Reston path on Monday as Christoph Walker, 51, of Sacramento, Calif. Walker is the son of Reston’s first Open Space and Nature Center Director, Vernon J. Walker, for whom the Walker Nature Education Center is named. Christoph Walker was visiting family in the 11200 block of Harbor Court in Reston when he went out for a run Monday morning. His family became concerned when he did not return, and then saw the story on Reston Patch about the unidentifed man late Monday afternoon, county police spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell said. Walker was found by a passerby lying on mulch next to a swing set off of French Horn Lane near the bike path and across the street from the Walker Nature …

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Global Campfire 2012 in Reston on Saturday

Reston-based Global Camps Africa to mark World AIDS Day.

Reston-based Global Camps Africa will mark World AIDS Day on Saturday, Dec. 1 with a Global Campfire at Reston Association's Walker Nature Education Center Fire Ring (Soapstone Road between Glade and Lawyers). Global Camps Africa was founded by longtime Restonian Phil Lilienthal. The organization provides HIV education and life skills to HIV-affected children in South Africa.  “We want our campfire to bring the community closer to experience the strength of what a group can bring to a problem - even one as immense as HIV/AIDS," says Lilienthal. Using the power of camp as its vehicle, GCA delivers these services to the under-served and at-risk population of orphans and vulnerable children from some of the neighborhoods hardest hit by the …

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Molly O'Boyle

11:01 am on Monday, November 26, 2012

I met a young lady working their table at the Reston Farmers Market this October. What a great idea. They also sell some fantastic beaded items made by Zulu ladies (I think) to help the HIV/AIDS causes. Shopping with a purpose ~ the best thing to do these days!   more ›

Family Fun at Nature House Spring Festival

Saturday open house features live animals, crafts and music.

Reston Association, with help from many other nature and evironmental groups, is hosting its annual Spring Festival on Saturday. The festival is from 1 to 5 p.m. at Walker Nature Education Center. It is free and features activities for the whole family. Among the highlights: live owls from the Raptor Conservancy of Virginia. Live entertainment, including acoustic music from Tom Bodine and a puppet show from Bob Brown Puppets. Fun games and craft-making activities will be available for kids. Visitors can also go fishing or rent canoes and kayaks ($3) at Lake Audubon. Over 20 environmental groups will be on hand with displays and information. There will be gardening tips from local gardeners and a native plant sale.   Schedule 1-1:30 p.m…

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Moviemaking, Reston Style

Web series "Anubis" filming at Reston locations.

Imagine if the black plague hit Northern Virginia in 2011, with germ warfare and people running and screaming and fighting for their lives. It's a plot that Ruben Najera has been thinking about for 15 years. He is turning it into a web series titled Anubis, which he hopes to begin airing this fall. Najera, a producer at Comcast Cable's Reston studio, is the producer, director, writer, editor and financier of Anubis (named for the Egyptian god of death). Najera's crew has shot scenes at the Walker Nature Education Center's Nature House. On Monday night, they also took over Market Street at Reston Town Center to shoot scenes. "I did a lot of research about the black plague," said Najera. "What would happen if there was an outbreak here? In …

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