Want to become a Riverbend Park volunteer? 

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Attend the next monthly Volunteer Orientation: Saturday, March 2, 9:30 am – 12:00 pm

Learn about our upcoming opportunities, projects, and events and get started on your training with a hands-on project!

Upcoming Opportunities 

  • Wildflower Survey (Feb-May) NEW – Identify & document native and non-native wildflowers 
  • Spring Salamander Survey (Feb-May) – ID, measure, and document salamanders 
  • Turtle Survey (Feb-May) NEW – ID native turtles and help us track & document their presence at Riverbend
  • Wildlife Camera Monitor NEW – Help us set up & track wildlife cams throughout the park and review footage for     some action! 
  • Exhibit Animal Care – Help provide care for our exhibit animals (min 4hrs/month for 6 months) 
  • Survey Data Entry (winter-spring) NEW – Enter data on our salamander survey onto a spreadsheet     
  • Spring/Summer Programs – Join our interpretive team and provide assistance at our camps & programs 
  • Dragonfly Survey (March-Oct) *training in March 
  • Bluebell Festival on April 6th! 
  • Ongoing Opportunities Watershed Clean ups, Habitat restoration, Trail maintenance and restoration, Gardening/plants Park Support 

Contacts:

Valeria Espinoza, Volunteer Coordinator [email protected]

Rita Peralta, Natural Resources Manager [email protected]

New spring projects at Hidden Oaks

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Each of these projects is on the FMN Service Project Calendar and count toward your FMN hours.  

Friday, March 1, 9am-11:15 pm or Saturday, March 2,  Dr. Seuss Celebrations  

Assist a naturalist with a salute to native animals that have real adaptations that rival the author’s fanciful creations.  Contact Fiona Davies, [email protected] or 703-941-1065.

Saturday, March 9, 8am – 1pm, Office for Children, Reptiles and Amphibians

Assist a naturalist at Hidden Oaks with the professional child caretaker three hour workshop on reptiles and amphibians to include leading crafts, walks, games and, if desired, part of of the presentation to 50 adults who care from 5-25 preschool children. Class is half outdoors or more depending on the weather. Please contact with interest and questions to [email protected]

Monday, March 11, 3:00pm – 4:15 pm, Centreville Library Outreach (Spring Changes)

Lead or assist a spring changes program for families at Centreville Library based on Hidden Oaks’ proram. Materials, animals, craft etc. provided. Can carpool from Hidden Oaks or meet there if assisting. If leaving from Hidden Oaks, start time is 1:45. Contact Fiona Davies at [email protected] or call 703-941-1065 

 

Join Potomac River Watershed Cleanup, Saturday, April 13

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The Alice Ferguson Foundation is sponsoring the Potomac Watershed Cleanup on Saturday, April 13.

Join the 31st Annual Potomac River Watershed Cleanup. The official date is Saturday, April 13, however, there will be cleanups throughout the entire month of April.

The Annual Potomac River Watershed Cleanup is the largest regional event of its kind, and the Cleanup aims to engage citizens and community leaders and to generates momentum for change.

The Friends of Accotink Creek website has information about Accotink Creek watershed cleanups on weekends, April 5 through May 11.

This project is eligible for FMN service credit.

Hear bird calls at FMN Quarterly Meeting, Mar. 18

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Photo by Barbara J. Saffir (c)

Hidden Oaks Nature Center
7701 Royce St., Annandale VA
Monday, 18 March 2019
7:30 – 9 pm

Public welcome!  The Fairfax Chapter of the Virginia Master Naturalists will have a brief chapter meeting, enjoy some food and drink, give out door prizes, and enjoy a presentation on Beginning Birding by Ear by Colt Gregory. Colt Gregory has been pursuing birds since the 1970’s when he first saw an Oystercatcher through a scope at Assateague.
He started closely listening for birds when small children limited his outings to neighborhood walks.  He expanded his knowledge by listening to the Allen Kellogg LPs – (founder of Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology) and moved on to CDs and MP3s! (Got to keep up with the technology.) Colt is an active member of Arlington Regional Master Naturalist, Northern Virginia Audubon Society, Northern Virginia Bird Club and volunteer for the National Park Service.  He participated in the two year birding census for National Park Service at Wolf Trap, leads a section on the Christmas Bird Count and co-leads the weekly Sunday bird walk at Great Falls National Park with Fairfax Master Naturalist Kristine Lansing.

Master naturalists can earn one hour of continuing education credit.

 

Friends of Wolf Trap host City Nature Challenge (and training!)

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As urban development in Northern Virginia continues to accelerate, the management of open spaces becomes more important than ever. Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, which encompasses more than 130 acres with 2.7 miles of trails, forests, native gardens, streams and a pond, contains important natural, recreational and historical resources for the community. As a not-for-profit organization, the Friends of Wolf Trap (FOWT) contributes to community awareness and assists the National Park Service with providing educational programs, recreation, and preservation through centralized volunteer efforts.  The FOWT are interested in increasing involvement from Fairfax Master Naturalist members in conducting citizen science projects and promoting the Park’s natural resources to the public.

Please register for one or more upcoming events listed at http://friendsofwolftrap.org/events/  and mark your calendars and join us for the following upcoming events:

  • Sunday, April 7, 2019 (10:00 am to noon):  iNaturalist Training and Hike at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts; Using iNaturalist to document and learn about nature is easy! Learn how, then participate in #CityNatureChallenge April 26-29.  In preparation for the 2019 City Nature Challenge, please join Deborah Barber, Director of Land Management from The Nature Conservancy, who will provide brief ‘classroom’ instruction in using the iNaturalist app before leading the group through the Park’s trails and gardens to obtain practical field experience using the app.  Be sure you have a fully charged smart phone and have already downloaded and signed in to the app.
  • Sunday, April 28, 2019 (1:00 pm to 4:00 pm): City Nature Challenge ‘Hike and Explore’ at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts; Take part in the 2019 City Nature Challenge at Wolf Trap! 130 cities across 6 continents are vying to prove that their area has the most nature and the most nature-loving residents – and we want the DC Metro Area to win! https://citynaturechallengedc.org/  Join us for a group hike or strike out on your own to explore the Park’s 130 acres including forests, trails, streams, ponds, meadows and gardens as you take pictures of Parks many plants and animals while taking part in the City Nature Challenge.  We will start with a brief introduction of how to use the iNaturalist app, so be sure you have a fully charged smart phone and have already downloaded and signed in to the app. (C260 is the appropriate service code)

Sign up to be trained as an Audubon at Home Ambassador

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Are you a bird lover who wants to create habitat to attract birds to your or your neighbors’ yards?  Are you a native plant lover?  Are you intrigued by observing wildlife in your own yard?  Do you lament the prevalence of English ivy, and sterile, conventional landscapes and lawns in Fairfax County suburbs?

If so, this is the gig for you!  Sign up to be trained as an Audubon at Home Ambassador and help transform the landscape of Northern Virginia, one yard at a time.

A training/orientation session will be offered Saturday, April 1, at the National Fish and Wildlife Federation headquarters at 11100 Wildlife Center Drive, Reston, from 10 a.m. to 1.  Bring a bag lunch.

Please email Betsy Martin at [email protected] by Tuesday Feb. 26th if you’d like to sign up. 

Audubon at Home Ambassadors visit properties and provide advice to homeowners on what natives to plant, what invasives to remove, and how to improve wildlife habitat in peoples’ backyards.  We certify properties as Wildlife Sanctuaries when homeowners adopt Best Habitat Practices, and when beneficial Sanctuary Species actually show up and use the yard. (Our motto is, “Let the animals decide.”)  You can learn more about the Audubon at Home program at http://audubonva.org/audubon-at-home-1 .

On April 1, Betsy Martin (Fairfax County Audubon at Home Coordinator) will give a presentation on the program and its philosophy, the role of Ambassador, and resources that will help you research and advise clients on native plants and habitat improvements.

After lunch, Charles Smith of Fairfax County Stormwater Planning Division will lead a walk on the beautiful and natural NFWF grounds, showing trainees how to read a landscape, what to look for when assessing its habitat value, and how to think about creating wildlife habitat.

Audubon at Home is an approved FMN service project.  You will receive 3 hours of Continuing Education credit for attending this training session and service credit for each home visit.

How to identify plants on iNaturalist

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Are you thinking about supporting the City Nature Challenge? Here’s a super easy-to-follow-video to learn how.

No need to say more–just watch.

Review of The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions, by Peter Brannen

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Reviewed by Tami Sheiffer

Studying mass extinction events from tens or hundreds of millions of years ago shows us that life on Earth is both precarious and resilient. In The Ends of the World, science writer Peter Brannen vividly describes the five past mass extinction events: End-Ordovician, Late Devonian, End-Permian, End-Triassic, and End-Cretaceous, and the lessons we can learn from them. This book offers something of interest to anyone interested in natural history, paleontology, geology, climatology, ecology, or evolution.

Brannen paints vivid pictures of life and destruction eons ago, interwoven with his personal tales of travel around the country talking with scientists and visiting paleontological sites. You can preview Brannen’s writing in one of his science articles, like this one titled “A Climate Catastrophe Paved the Way for the Dinosaurs’ Reign,” published in The Atlantic. Occasionally, Brannen’s storytelling risks anthropomorphism, as when he describes the first fish to walk on land in the Devonian as “bold explorers” and “brave pioneers.” However, Brannen’s engaging writing makes this book enjoyable reading for a broad audience.

By studying the causes of past mass extinctions, we find that most were caused by climate change. The Earth’s climate has changed naturally in the past, but drastic changes were violent and caused massive destruction. Life is ultimately resilient, and, eventually, surviving species evolved to repopulate a new Earth, but life after the extinction looked very different from life before. In the most deadly mass extinction, the End-Permian event, nearly all life was wiped out. This extinction event was caused in part by volcanic activity in the Siberian Traps burning underground coal basins and releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. 

Our present day fossil fuel activity has a similar effect of releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but at an even faster rate than in the end-Permian extinction. The overarching theme of the book is that  past mass extinctions can teach us lessons for the present, as we find ourselves in the midst of a sixth mass extinction. This time, human activity is the cause of the extinction–beginning tens of thousands of years ago with the loss of megafauna like marsupial lions, giant kangaroos, woolly mammoths, mastodons, and giant ground sloths due to hunting, and continuing today due to habitat loss and human-induced climate change. This book is ultimately a cautionary tale: learn from the past so we can avoid a catastrophe on the same scale today. 

On March 20, 2019, Peter Brannen will be speaking at an event at the Library of Congress called “Climate Change, Nature, and the Writer’s Eye”, along with distinguished authors Annie Proulx and Amitav Ghosh. The authors will discuss environmental change and a writer’s responsibility to the issue. This event is approved for FMN continuing education credit. The event is free but registration is required. 

Want to review a resource? We’d love to hear from you. Instructions for submission await your click and commitment.

Turning the tide on plastic waste

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The Ocean Plastic Innovation Challenge, a key component of National Geographic and Sky Ocean Ventures’ partnership to reduce plastic waste, asks problem solvers from around the globe to develop novel solutions to tackle the world’s plastic waste crisis.

More than 9 million tons of plastic waste end up in our oceans each year, and without interventions, this number is expected to almost double to 17 million tons per year by 2025. The Ocean Plastic Innovation Challenge will focus on three strategic ways to address this growing crisis: designing alternatives to single-use plastic, identifying opportunities for industries to address plastic waste throughout supply chains, and effectively communicating the need for action through data visualization.

Teams will compete for aggregate prize purses of up to $500,000, and qualified participating teams may have the opportunity to receive a minimum of $1 million in aggregate investment from Sky Ocean Ventures.

Find out more and apply

Frying Pan Farm Park Pollinator Garden: Community Partnerships in Action

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Kim Scudera

In 2011, Frying Pan Park did not have a pollinator garden.

By October 2012, they did, and Fairfax Master Naturalist volunteers are the reason. Here’s the story.

Frying Pan has a long history, and hosts thousands of visitors each year, many of whom are the future stewards of our environment: young children. My own children had participated for years in summer camps at Frying Pan, learning about farm life and farm animals, making butter, playing outdoors.

In July of 2012, Ashley Stanton, then service project chair for FMN, put out a call for the development of a pollinator garden, as a “thank you” to Frying Pan for hosting our annual meeting.

Sarah Mayhew, FMN Class of ‘07, pulled together a team of people from Frying Pan Park, the Fairfax chapter of the Virginia Master Naturalist program, and representatives of the Virginia Native Plant Society (Potowmack Chapter) and Earth Sangha. Without her strong leadership, this project could not have happened. Carmen Bishop, FMN ’07, served tirelessly as liaison to the park.  

A site was chosen near the historic farmhouse: the location wraps around the south and east sides of the park’s Dairy House, where a neglected garden, created by a Girl Scout troop about ten years back, was in need of a major retrofit.

With lots of input from Carmen, Sarah, Cindy Morrow, Amol Kaikini, Terrence Liercke, Alan Ford, and Lisa Bright from Earth Sangha, I designed the pollinator garden in August 2012. By September, garden preparation was complete, and plants were donated by many FMN’ers, and by VNPS Potowmack and Earth Sangha.  

Why did VNPS and Earth Sangha choose to become involved? Expanding our understanding of the value of native plants, and putting those plants into the hands of Virginia homeowners, schools, and businesses, are key elements of the missions of these two organizations. Personal connections matter, too: for example, then-VNPS Potowmack President Alan Ford is a Fairfax Master Naturalist, and these personal connections brought volunteers and donations of plants to the garden.

Two planting days were all it took to get the garden established. The garden includes many plants important to bees, butterflies, and other pollinating insects, including goldenrods, bee balm, and milkweed.

It’s one thing to get a garden started; the real challenge is keeping it going. Since 2012, I have donated over 275 hours of time caring for this garden, with help from the park (big thanks to Patrick McNamara and Marge Landis) and from FMN members. Cindy Morrow and Cynde Sears have been exceptionally helpful. 

The scope has expanded from the original Dairy House planting to maintenance and expansion of the herb garden around the Smoke House adjacent to the Dairy House.  

The herb garden was already a real magnet for pollinators of all sorts:  bees, butterflies, flies, wasps, and more. It was already home to a substantial stand of our native mountain mint. Adding more native plants with culinary uses was an obvious addition to our mission at Frying Pan, and Girl Scout Rachel O, along with her sponsor Kay Fowler, added many of these plants in 2016.

The garden has filled in well since it was first planted:

Dairy House before planting

 

Herb Garden before planting

 

Garden right after planting

 

Garden as of Summer 2015

 

Garden as of summer 2017

These photographs document the growth that made possible a dramatic increase in beneficial insects and their larvae in the garden: butterflies and moths (e.g., skippers, fritillaries, monarchs, cecropia moths) have been most prevalent. 

The garden has not only attracted more flying visitors—it has encouraged a considerable increase in two-legged traffic as well. The pollinator garden has hosted Brownie and Scout troops, summer campers and school groups for presentations on the value of pollinators and the plants that host them, and a steady stream of park visitors now have an interesting destination right next to the historic farmhouse, and en route to the chickens. 

In addition, at the park’s major events, FMN has hosted information tables which reached dozens of park visitors.  These tables were staffed by Marilyn Schroeder, Joe Gorney, Valerie Lamont, Barbara Whayne, and me.

Tending the garden—which I have done since inception—is a labor of love. I plan to not only keep it going, but to make it a service project of choice for the chapter (look for S109 if you’re a member). There’s still so much to do: more edging, pruning, planting, signage, weeding, formal certification by Audubon at Home, National Wildlife Federation, Xerces… And as my mother and grandmother always said, “Many hands make light work!”

Join us!