FMN Outreach Chair reports on Taking Nature Black Conference

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Mike Walker, Co-chair for FMN Outreach, attended portions of this 5 day Zoom conference, representing FMN. This was the third annual “Taking Nature Black” conference and the first to be virtual. The conference organizers, largely led by staff from the Audubon Naturalist Society for the DC region, identified a large panel of speakers, almost a “Who’s Who” of Black professionals working on environmental or natural history programs in various federal and state agencies, like the National Park Service or Fish and Wildlife, academia and non-profits. For many it seemed like a welcome reunion and an opportunity to get refocused and rejuvenated after the pandemic issues of the past year.

The conference featured a number of interesting panel discussions, such as Novel Ways of Protecting Our Waterways, Birding While Black, Agriculture Innovations and Food Insecurity and Democracy in the Parks. Notable keynote presentations featured Dr. Drew Lanham, Professor of Wildlife Ecology, Clemson University, and Dr. Thomas Easley, Dean of Community and Inclusion at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. The conference website “Taking Nature Black Conference” is well worth taking a look at.

It was encouraging to see the diversity of interests represented by speakers on these panels, particularly regarding deep seated concerns to protect agricultural and undeveloped rural lands, issues that are also important to Master Naturalists. There was also a heavy emphasis on training for children and youth to appreciate and respect open spaces, particularly in urban settings. It was reassuring to learn that we have many allies in our effort to protect and preserve our natural environment.

Check Out Two Air Quality and Energy Choice Activities for Educators from the Environmental Protection Agency and MIT

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Environmental Protection Agency researchers participate in educational outreach to schools, museums, and other locations to teach students about air quality and climate change research that EPA and partners conduct to protect the air we breathe and provide the knowledge and scientific tools to respond to a changing climate. As part of the outreach, researchers have developed several hands-on activities for teachers and others to use in the classroom and other educational settings.

Particulate Matter (PM) Air Sensor Kits

Particle pollution, known as particulate matter (PM), is one of the major air pollutants regulated by EPA to protect public health and the environment. EPA researchers developed a PM air sensor kit as an educational tool to teach children about air quality and air science. MIT extended the work and developed a kit that you and your students can build together. Learn more and order the kit.

Generate: The Game of Energy Choices

EPA scientists developed an interactive board game called Generate: The Game of Energy Choices, which enables players to explore energy choices and the environment and gets students “energized” in some friendly competition. The game is a teaching tool that can be used to understand the costs and benefits of the energy choices we make; find out what happens if the mix of energy sources changes in the future and learn what energy choices mean for our climate, air, water, and overall environmental quality.

Review of Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why they Matter, by Ben Goldfarb

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Reviewed by FMN Susan Martel

Ever since my close encounter with beavers while canoeing the Bow River in Banff, Canada, I have had a soft spot for the furry critters. So, when I came across Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, I thought I would learn a bit more about Castor canadensis. The read turned out to be a revelation!

Described as having impacts on a continental scale and history-changing in scope, beavers are championed by passionate “Beaver Believers” as the salvation to many environmental ills. Author Ben Goldfarb has written a compelling account of the beaver as one of the ultimate keystone species. He describes how the landscapes of western states, such as Oregon, California, and Nevada, once boasted a complex network of streams, ponds, and wet meadows. Formed by beaver colonies, these wetlands supported a diverse array of plants, insects, fish, amphibians, and mammals. Goldfarb chronicles how trapping beavers to near extinction both in the United States and abroad devastated the natural landscapes and had far reaching effects across trophic levels.

Helping beavers recolonize their former habitats just might hold the key to revitalizing devastated areas and benefit us as well. For example, the book lays out how the restored habitats could be a solution to water shortages and pollution, if we let the beavers do the work for us. Goldfarb’s description of successes stories, cautionary tales, and conflicts associated with beaver reintroduction are populated by an array of interesting characters, both human and castorid.

Even if this account doesn’t convert you into a Beaver Believer, the story will appeal to the naturalist in you. It reinforces the importance of understanding the interconnections of nature, of making thoughtful and science-based environmental management decisions, and of learning “to coexist and thrive alongside our fellow travelers on this planet.” (p. 25)

(2018, Chelsea Green Publishing, 304 pages)

Review of Gathering Moss, by Robin Wall Kimmerer

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Reviewed by FMN Kristina Watts

If you ask my family, they’ll tell you that I’m now obsessed with moss. “Tell us just ONE fact about moss at dinner today.” My husband challenged the other day. Last week, I took a walk with my son out in the woods where he spends his spare time, and he offered to show me all the mossy spots he was aware of. (We were able to observe at least three different species on one tree root, to our untrained eyes.)

It started with Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses). Though I consider myself a pretty avid naturalist, I’d never really paid attention to moss before. But Kimmerer opened up my eyes to a whole new world in the miniature.

Kimmerer isn’t just a PhD bryologist and university professor, she is a gifted writer and storyteller. She brought these plants alive in my imagination through her vivid descriptions of mosses’ fascinating reproductive cycle, their importance in creating and maintaining whole habitats (who knew their ability to contain moisture was so critical?) and the lessons they teach ecologists about concepts from succession to the very meaning of what “life” is. And all this was woven together with tales of mosses’ use to humankind throughout history, as well as Kimmerer’s own personal adventures in studying these surprisingly diverse organisms.

In each chapter, Kimmerer illustrates her chosen theme by treating an individual moss species like an old friend, with a distinct personality to portray it. In this way, she has made me very curious about the moss species that inhabit my backyard and the surrounding woods. I can’t wait to find a patch to examine under a magnifying glass and crack open my new moss identification guide. Given her comparison of the living moss turf’s structure, function, and composition of inhabitants to that of a lush rainforest, it’s exciting to think about how much there is to explore in a small area. While the book is very much grounded in science, the almost-spiritual appreciation that Kimmerer demonstrates for the interconnectedness between mosses and insects, trees, and all layers of the forest has inspired me to never take mosses for granted again. Maybe soon there will be a dedicated moss garden in my yard!

Whether you’re looking for a new hobby in bryology or just a well written book that reflects on what we can learn from one tiny yet practically ubiquitous part of nature, I highly recommend Gathering Moss.

(2003, Oregon State University Press, 168 pages)

Planting in Pots for Easy Butterfly Viewing

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Photo and article by Plant NOVA Natives

Some of us are deeply into gardening, but the rest of us are content with plopping a few flowers into a pot and calling it a day. This explains a lot of the popularity of annuals, most of which end up in containers and are switched out when they fade. Their colors brighten up our decks and balconies all summer, but their value in most cases is only visual. Native perennial flowers, by contrast, not only look beautiful but actually support butterflies and other life.

Most plants that are native to our area will overwinter in a pot, thus saving us the trouble of replanting year after year. Although none of them will bloom for the entire growing season, they provide interest as they develop. It is easy to get continuous color by planting several species that bloom at different times.

Once blooming begins, the parade of associated pollinators is fascinating. Being able to view the flowers up close on a deck or balcony reveals the variety of critters that you might not notice from afar, from tiny metallic-blue bees to the whole range of butterflies. There are four hundred species of native bees in Virginia, none of which will sting you as they forage for food. Butterflies range in size from the tiny Least Skipper to the classic Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. With luck, you may even see a Monarch Butterfly, especially if you plant any of a number of the several local milkweed species. The milkweed Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) is particularly ornamental and just the right size for container gardening. Just as Monarch caterpillars require milkweed to survive, every other butterfly has its preferred host plant with which it evolved. This is why adopting locally native plants is so important. The annuals sold in garden centers are not native and thus do not help butterflies complete their life cycles.

Birds also enjoy native plants in containers, as much as they would if planted in a garden. The seeds of Black-eyed Susan and other Rudbeckias are particularly popular with goldfinches. Of course, you will only see them if you allow the seed heads to remain. The shapes and colors of the dead stalks of native plants add a lot of interest to an otherwise barren deck in winter. You can also draw in hummingbirds when you use the red-flowered plants such as Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis) that they prefer.

Shade is no obstacle to container gardening with native plants. Particularly pleasing is the native Bleeding Heart (Dicentra eximia). The lacy, slightly bluish foliage is beautiful by itself, and blooms keep coming from April to the first frost.

You can learn all about container gardening with native plants on the Plant NOVA Natives website. The soil used in containers is designed to have good drainage, which means you can start planting earlier in the spring than in the rest of the garden, where working the wet soil would lead to harmful compaction.

Review of Crow Planet, Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness, by Lyanda Lynn Haupt

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Reviewed by FMN Stacey Remick-Simkins

(2009, 229 pages) This is a masterpiece that I recommend to all, but particularly those grappling with the most difficult questions of how to live meaningfully in this challenged environmental milieu. Crows are the purveyor of the wisdom and carry us to the places of wonder that Haupt seeks to take us.  Specifically, she portrays her relationship with the injured crow Charlotte. 

Crow science and lore engage us to consider our humility and courage as we live out our life of responsibility and care for the wild world.  Haupt uses references to some of the great known writers and scientists, including Leopold, Thomas Eisner (Cornell professor and biologist), and Rachel Carson, that offer us ways and tools to challenge many of our naturalist assumptions and potentially revising our thinking. She suggests tools for further exploration such as nature journaling, Buddhist practices of Mindfulness, the Benedictine Rule of Life and Lectio Divina, as they can be transformed for our observations of nature.  She recognizes science as critically important to understanding where we are now, but demands that we do not lose our ability to see the wonder that exists quite apart from data gathering and naming only. She provides us the tools, the questions and the insights that challenge us all to be reverent co-inhabitants and all the profound responsibility that entails.

I have made it part of my life library which contains books that have had an extraordinary impact on my thinking or influenced me in ways that are life-changing. 

(Included is a reading group guide which includes an interview with the author, study questions and her list of must-read texts)

Native Grasses for our Yards

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Photo and article courtesy of Plant NOVA Natives

When we think of grass in our yards, the image that arises is likely to be that of turf grass. But there are many other places for grasses in our landscapes, and many other species available besides the European turf grass that is used for lawn. Grasses that are native to our region not only add beauty and texture in our gardens but also provide multiple environmental benefits.
 
This class of plants not only refers to true grasses (which tend to be sun-loving) but also to sedges (which are more often shade-loving) and rushes. Their size can range from tiny to gigantic. Clumps of taller grasses provide structural interest as well as motion and sound as the wind rustles through them. Shorter ones work as groundcovers. Some are evergreen, and all provide winter interest and seeds for the birds.
 
In shady areas with minimal foot traffic, some native grasses can be used as a substitute for conventional lawns, though this would require planting a lot of little plants at 8-10 inch intervals and a good deal of attention during establishment, not just throwing down seed. Deep soil amendment is critical on a typical compacted former lawn area which lacks good nutrition and may have alkaline soil, and it can take a few years for such lawns to get established.
 
Native grasses play a critical role in the ecosystem, providing
• Roots that are deeper than European turf grass and which do a better job at erosion control, breaking up hard soil and capturing stormwater
• Carbon sequestration
• Dense root structures that create a barrier to the spread of aggressive plants, creating pockets where more delicate plants can live
• Host plants for numerous species of butterflies, skippers, moths and others
• Food sources for birds and other wildlife
• Nesting material and cover.
Most of the plant material in a meadow consists of grasses, with colorful flowers tucked in between.
 
Several of the native grasses that are used as ornamentals are widely available in conventional nurseries, including the spectacular Pink Muhly Grass (Muhlenbergii capillaris), pictured above. (Be careful where you plant it, though – it needs good drainage!) Others can be purchased at one of the nurseries that specialize in native plants. For details, check out the Plant NOVA Natives website.
 

Review of How Birds Migrate, by Paul Kerlinger

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Reviewed by FMN Kristine Lansing

In just a few weeks, nothing short of a miracle will be well underway.

Birds of all sizes and shapes — from the tiniest of hummingbirds to the largest of hawks — will embark upon an incredible geographic relocation, traveling thousands and, in some cases, tens of thousands of miles to reach their summer breeding grounds . . . where they will stay for only a few months to raise their young.

How do such fragile creatures survive a journey that would do most of us in — despite all of our modern conveniences — on the very first day? It’s not too late to learn more about the odyssey that is spring migration before it gets into full swing.

In this succinct book (only 216 pages) from 2008, ornithologist Paul Kerlinger demystifies migration by discussing: why birds migrate; factors that trigger migration; how birds prepare for the journey; their navigation across water and vast terrain; why some birds fly at night while others fly during the day; migratory rest stops; and in-flight communications. Dr. Kerlinger’s explanations, accompanied by short case studies and artist Pat Archer’s illustrations, make this book exceedingly accessible to non-birders and birders alike.

So if you’re new to birding (or simply curious), and if you read this book right now, you will never see spring and fall through the same eyes again. If you’re an experienced birder, though, don’t pass the book by; you’ll find yourself referring to it time after time.

Dr. Kerlinger is a former director of the New Jersey Audubon Society’s Cape May Bird Observatory.

How Climate Change Affects Your Health

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There’s more to climate change than meets the eye. When most people hear the term “climate action” they think of planting trees, turning off the lights, driving clean cars, and buying less plastic. There’s good reason for these associations, all of these activities help to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, or address greenhouse gas emissions, and this is the heart of climate action. People think about these activities in terms of environmental and economic benefits – we can preserve natural resources and build a more sustainable economy for future generations. Health doesn’t always enter the conversation, but it should.

Spread of Infectious Disease

As weather patterns and temperature norms shift over time, so will the spread of infectious disease. Many infectious diseases are carried by vectors, like mosquitoes and ticks, and these organisms will see a change in their home ranges over time as the climate changes. We could see diseases that were once considered tropical or subtropical become commonplace here in Fairfax County.

Heat Waves For Days

In the DC-metro region, we’re used to some hot summer days. But what if those stretches of extremely hot weather worsened and lasted for longer periods of time? What if a trend toward hotter weather overall started to impact our health? It’s possible. We already know that climate change is expected to cause a steady increase in the number of days with high minimum temperatures (nighttime temperatures that remain above 75 degrees) in our region. Sustained heat events can be dangerous to those who work outdoors, children who spend time outdoors, the elderly, pregnant women, low-income individuals without access to relief, and those with weakened immune systems.

Pollution and Respiratory Illness

Finally, it’s important to know that many of the same chemical compounds that change our climate over time are also common air pollutants, which make it harder to breathe and can exacerbate respiratory illnesses, like asthma. By working to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, personally and as a community, we can have a direct impact on air quality in our region.

This is why Fairfax County is developing the first-ever Community-wide Energy and Climate Action Plan, or CECAP. The CECAP is unique in that it is being developed by the community, for the community, with input from dozens of organizational, business, and civic leaders, as well as individual residents. The CECAP will outline greenhouse gas reduction goals for the community and will include recommended strategies and actions community members can take on a voluntary basis to help achieve the goals. County residents interested in helping to implement the plan can email [email protected] for more information.

Accelerating Decarbonization of the U.S. Energy System

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The National Academies of Science and Medicine just published their report, Accelerating Decarbonization of the U.S. Energy System, and have made available a public overview and interactive summaries to make the 200+ document easier to digest. See the links below.

Report Resources

Upcoming Events

Join the National Academy of Sciences study chair Stephen Pacala for a Climate Conversation at the National Academies on Feb 18, 2021 at 3pm ET.  Learn more and register to attend at https://climate-convo-decarb.eventbrite.com

Here’s a clear, 101-level overview of what the social cost of carbon means, courtesy of Resources for the Future.