Burke Centre Conservancy Wildlife Committee

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Burke Centre Conservancy Wildlife Committee Living in harmony with nature is more than a slogan–it’s our promise to neighbors and the creatures we share space with.

Nature’s Lanternfly Patrol is officially on duty. 🪲If you’re seeing spotted lanternflies around Burke Centre, here’s the...
06/10/2026

Nature’s Lanternfly Patrol is officially on duty. 🪲

If you’re seeing spotted lanternflies around Burke Centre, here’s the good news: our native wildlife has figured out they’re edible. Spined soldier bugs, praying mantises, and wheel bugs hunt the nymphs, and plenty of our birds — cardinals, blue jays, catbirds — eat them at every stage.

Penn State researchers have been documenting the growing list of locals making a meal of this invasive pest.
They’re opportunists, not a full solution, so squishing the ones you spot is still fair game.

But the simplest thing you can do is the one we always come back to: skip the broad-spectrum sprays. They wipe out the very predators doing this work for free — along with the pollinators we’re trying to keep around.

A yard that’s friendly to birds and bugs is a yard hard at work helping us battle the lanternfly problem.

Keep it wild out there Burke Centre 🐾🐝🐢🦊🦉



Sharing this from AERO — and adding a few thoughts from under the BCC canopy.Glue traps are sold as the easy fix. Nope, ...
05/16/2026

Sharing this from AERO — and adding a few thoughts from under the BCC canopy.

Glue traps are sold as the easy fix. Nope, they're not. Glue traps don't read labels, so they catch whatever wanders by: the chipmunk on the deck, the wren who slipped into the garage, the little brown snake who was (yes, honestly) working on your mouse problem for free. And it's not just wildlife. Dogs sniff them. Toddlers pick them up. And the poor unfortunate creatures who come across them don't perish quickly. They die slowly, stuck, while we're at work.

There are better options that actually work.

Inside:
• Snap traps — fast, target-specific, cheap. (Peanut butter, not cheese. Sorry, cartoons.)
• Electronic traps — same idea, tidier, reusable.
• Seal the entry point. Mice come in because a gap exists. Steel wool and caulk where the pipes go through the foundation saves a lot of future trapping.

Outside:
Leave it to our wildlife friends who already do this for a living running 24-hour rodent control – black rat snakes, the red-shouldered hawks, the barred owls, the foxes. A glue trap in a shed or garage can take any of them out by accident.

Found wildlife already stuck? Don't try to peel it off — that hurts the animal worse than the trap did. Keep it contained, keep it calm, and call a licensed wildlife rehabber. Our AERO partners are in the original post; Wildlife Rescue League also runs a Northern Virginia helpline at 703-440-0800.

Creatures on a glue trap are rough to look at. But as AERO says, most of these animals can still be saved if someone (yes, 🫵) stops, cares, and picks up the phone. 💚



🐝That big bee hovering by your porch rail like it pays HOA dues?Probably a carpenter bee.And yes — if it’s making neat l...
05/05/2026

🐝That big bee hovering by your porch rail like it pays HOA dues?

Probably a carpenter bee.

And yes — if it’s making neat little round holes in your wood, that’s something to pay attention to. Carpenter bees nest by tunneling into untreated or weathered wood, and if the same area is reused year after year, those tunnels can cause real damage.

So no, you do not have to lovingly surrender your deck to the bees.

But here’s the neighborly fine print: the bee acting tough near your face is usually the male, and he cannot sting. No stinger. No weapon. Just attitude.

The female can sting, but rarely does unless she’s handled or trapped. Mostly, she’s busy building a nest and provisioning it for the next generation.

And carpenter bees are not just porch drama. They are native pollinators, and they’re especially good at “buzz pollination” — the vibration-based pollination that helps plants like blueberries, native azaleas, and other flowering plants set seed and fruit.

So the goal is not “declare war on carpenter bees.”

The goal is: protect your structure, and keep the pollinators.

Paint or stain exposed wood. Repair damaged trim. Fill old holes in the fall after nesting season. And when possible, offer untreated nesting wood away from the house so they have a better place to be bees.

Carpenter bees can be a nuisance.

They are also be part of a healthy yard.

Both things are true — because nature apparently does not believe in simple categories.

Protect the porch. Respect the pollinator 🐝🌸

Address

6060 Burke Centre Parkway
Burke, VA
22015

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+17039782928

Website

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