Help tend healing gardens at Crisis Care Center in Annandale, 14 April

/in , , /by

The Crisis Care Center in Annandale is looking for volunteers to tend to its healing gardens (right next to the parking lot at Fairfax Hospital). You may remove debris (fallen branches, trash, leaves) and invasive plants, place mulch, add plant, harvest produce from a vegetable garden, and water. The Center will provide lunch.

No prior experience is necessary. Bring a hat, work gloves, sunscreen, bug spray, and water. Organizers suggest that you wear pants, long sleeved shirt, and sturdy shoes. Bring garden clippers and a digger if you have them. Since the CCC is a community treatment facility, volunteers will need to complete required paperwork when they arrive on-site. This will include an application gathering some basic information, criminal/cps history disclosure form (self report), role description, and confidentiality statement, as well as handouts to read. Volunteers can register on site when they arrive

Crisis Care Center

3300 Woodburn Rd

Annandale, VA, 22003

Saturday 14 April 2018

9 am-1 pm

For Fairfax Master Naturalists, this work counts toward Service Project S257

The healing gardens are a joint venture between Green Springs Gardens Master Gardeners and the Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board. The gardens serve the residents of the CCC as a place to practice mindfulness and to find peace. Learn more

Find service opportunities with the Fairfax County Parks

/in , , /by

New education, stewardship, and citizen science projects for Fairfax Master Naturalists have just been added to the Service Project Calendar. (If you are reading this and are not yet a naturalist, please consider applying for basic training.) You can also find opportunities by contacting the parks directly: Hidden Oaks, Huntley Meadows, Riverbend, Ellanor C. Lawrence, Frying Pan, Green Spring Gardens, Hidden Pond, and Cub Run RECenter all have opportunities for FMN members. Here’s a small sampling:

Spring-Fest at Historic Sully, 21 April, 9:45am–4pm – assist with interactive nature experiences at FCPA table

Meaningful Watershed Education Experiences, Hidden Oaks, 3, 4, 5, 6, 27 April; 1, 2, 3, 4 May 9:15am -1pm – assist at stations including stream studies, stewardship, benthic macroinvertebrate study or live animal exhibits for 7th grade classes

My Sky Tonight Campfire, 7 April, 7-9:30 pm, Hidden Oaks – assist with family campfire program about constellations

Touch this Fox, 28 April, 12-2:30, Hidden Oaks – assist with family program where participants can touch real specimens and bones, educate about taxidermy and specimen care, dissect an owl pellet

Habitat and Parkland Management, dates & times flexible – perform maintenance of trails and other natural resource protection projects, such as with native wildflower garden or storm damage cleanup

Animal care, dates & times flexible – feed and care for animals on exhibit.  Animal care volunteers are needed at Hidden Oaks, Hidden Pond, Ellanor C. Lawrence and Riverbend.

To volunteer for Hidden Oaks programs, contact Suzanne Holland, [email protected] or 703-941-1065.  For other locations, contact the nature center or park.

Did you miss the FMN March chapter meeting? Gotcha covered

/in , , /by

The crowd at the 19 March chapter meeting at Hidden Oaks asked and got the answer to an important question: Can you eat the

mushroom called Amanita bisporigera (Destroying Angel)? The answer: Only once.

We can’t help with the voice track for the rest of the Q&A, but Penny Firth and Robin Firth have graciously allowed us to share their presentation, What’s That Mushroom?

Enjoy the fungi pix, and be sure not to miss the next FMN chapter meeting: Sunday, 20 May, 4.30-6 pm, St. Dustan’s Episcopal Church, 1830 Kirby Road, McLean. We’ll congratulate the spring 2018 graduates and hear from our community.

Lead a Pull of Invasive Garlic Mustard, 14 April, 10 am-2 pm, Riverbend 

/in , , /by

Come enjoy Riverbend Bluebell Festival, which draws 300-500 people historically. While you’re there, get service hours by removing garlic mustard. Email Rita Peralta or call 703 759-9018 to volunteer

14 April 2018

10 am-2 pm

Riverbend Park, 8700 Potomac Hills St., Great Falls, VA

This activity counts toward service hours

Springtime Treasures at Ball’s Bluff Battlefield Regional Park

/in , /by

With biologist Marion Lobstein

Saturday, April 7
11.00 am to 1.00 pm

This event has LIMITED SPACE, and you must register to attend.

Please click here to REGISTER.

To CANCEL your registration or ask a QUESTION, please email [email protected]

Balls Bluff, like much of piedmont Northern Virginia, is underlain by limestone deposits and topped by Ball’s Bluff siltstone deposits that date back 308 to 345 million years. The brick-red siltstone bluffs are more than 100 feet high in places and parallel the floodplain on the banks of the Potomac. The basic to neutral pH of the soils from the siltstone parent rock provide a rich habitat for less common to rarer species of native plants such as twinleaf (Jeffersonia diphylla), blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides), green violet (Hybanthus concolor), white trout lily (Erythronium albidum), Eastern shooting star (Primula meadia, formerly Dodecatheon meadia), and walking fern (Asplenium rhizophyllum). Masses of Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) carpet the floodplain along with spicebush (Lindera benzoin) and pawpaw (Asimina triloba).

Marion Blois Lobstein is Professor Emeritus of NVCC, where she taught botany, general biology, microbiology, and other courses over her thirty-seven-year teaching career. She also taught Field Botany for thirteen summers at UVA’s Blandy Experimental Farm. For twenty-six years she conducted tours and taught classes for the Smithsonian Resident Associates Program. Her academic degrees include a BSEd (Biology) from W. Carolina Univ., MAT from UNC-Chapel Hill, and MS in Biology from George Mason Univ. She is co-author of Finding Wildflowers in the Washington-Baltimore Area. Marion serves on the Board of Directors of the Foundation of the Flora of Virginia Project and is a former Board Member of the Foundation of the State Arboretum at Blandy Experimental Farm. Marion is a founding and active member of the Virginia Native Plant Society. She currently lives in Warrenton, VA.

Other: Dogs are not permitted on Virginia Native Plant Society field trips.

What to wear: Dress for the weather and wear sturdy shoes.

Bring binoculars and hand lens if desired.

Join Alonso Abugattas at Thompson Wildlife Management Area for Trillium Walk, 28 April

/in , , /by

The Virginia Native Plant Society is sponsoring Alonso Abugattas, noted naturalist, ethno-botanist, and host of the Capital Naturalist blog as he leads a Trillium Walk at Thompson Wildlife Management Area on the east slope of the Shenandoahs, east of Front Royal. This site is recognized for the abundance of spring ephemerals, especially the native trilliums.

Saturday, 28 April 2018

9 am – 2 pm

If you are a Fairfax Master Naturalist, this activity counts toward continuing education credits

Learn more

Go Birding on Virginia’s Eastern Shore and Chincoteague Island

/in , , /by

Enjoy special access to Wallops Island and other protected birding destinations, where you’ll learn from experts as you look for the region’s more than 400 species of birds. During the migratory season, millions of birds along the Atlantic Flyway “funnel” through a small area along Virginia’s Eastern Shore, where more than 400 species have been recorded. Explore the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge’s restricted back country on Chincoteague and Assateague islands with Chincoteague Bay Field Station.

The 6-day event costs $599. April and May are waitlisted; September and December are accepting applications.

If you are a Fairfax Master Naturalist, this activity counts toward continuing education credits

Learn more

A Taste of Spring at Scott’s Run Nature Preserve

/in , , /by

A Walk with Carrie Blair

Sunday, March 25th, 9.00 am to 12 noon

Scott’s Run Nature Preserve, Georgetown Pike, McLean, VA 22102

“Bud break” at Scott’s Run Nature Preserve shows that spring has come. Scan the tree tops to see the brown of the elms, the red of the maples, and the yellow of the willows. The American hazelnut is flowering with golden catkins and the red, silver and boxelder maples are flowering. These are joining the greens that made it through winter on the forest floor, including ground pine, white avens, and patridgeberry.

Carrie has led hundreds of tree identification walks and classes over the last 25 years of volunteering with the VNPS Piedmont Chapter and as a docent at the State Arboretum of Virginia, part of the  Blandy Experimental Farm in Boyce, Virginia. She is a Virginia Master Naturalist and has served as a Front Royal/Warren County Tree Steward since 2010. She has been a board member, including president, of the Virginia Native Plant Society Piedmont Chapter for many years. Carrie lives in the Marshall, Virginia, area and knows the land intimately by walking and riding horses.

Sponsored by the Potowmack Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society.

VNPS programs are free and open to the public, but space on walks is limited.

Please click here to REGISTER.

To CANCEL your registration or ask a QUESTION, please email [email protected].

Save the Date: Next FMN Chapter Meeting is 19 March, at Hidden Oaks

/in , /by
FMN Chapter Meetings are informative, fun, good for networking, and count for 1 hour of continuing education credit! Come reconnect with friends and fellow naturalists.
Monday, 19 March 2018, 7.30-9 pm: Penny Firth (Director, Division of Environmental Biology, National Science Foundation) and Robin Firth present “What’s that mushroom?”, an overview of our area fungi and how to get into studying fungi in Virginia.
Hidden Oaks Nature Center, 7701 Royce St., Annandale. Open to the public.
Sunday, 20 May 2018, 4.30-6 pm: Chapter Meeting and Spring Class Graduation
St. Dustan’s Church, McLean. Open to the public.
17 Sept 2018: Hidden Oaks Nature Center, details TBD

Working to reduce plastics in our environment

/in , /by

The Fairfax County Federation invites the public to interact with three speakers:

Kris Unger, primary conservator of the Friends of Accotink Creek will talk about what happens to plastic as it traverses the environment.

Erica Carter, recycling coordinator for the Fairfax Solid Waste Management Program, will discuss recycling and the market for recycled plastic.

Don Cammerata, business manager for Virginia Facilities for Covanta, and Frank Capoblanco and Joe Walsh, will discuss how plastics are dealt with at the Lorton Waste to Energy Facility.

Thursday, 29 March 2018

7.30 pm

Main Community Room, Mason Government Center

6507 Columbia Pike, Annandale, VA 22003

RSVP Flint Webb