Conservation Advocacy 101 for HOAs and Condo Associations

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Do you live in an HOA or Condo Association? Have you been thinking about how you can better our natural world through work in your community and/or on the common property of your association? Maybe you’ve been considering a tree planting or tree replacement policy, thinking about better lawn maintenance practices, or wanting to install a pollinator garden.

Join Renee Grebe through the Audubon Naturalist Society (ANS) and attend their Conservation Advocacy 101 Workshops. They’ll be holding this two times – pick whichever date works best for you. They will cover some key introductory advocacy skills like identifying issues and ideas for solutions, researching and communicating ideas, developing an action plan, talking to decision-makers, and building community partnerships to broaden support for your issue.

You’ll get a chance to think about your own community, begin developing your own action plan, and participate in breakout discussions. Please RSVP to ensure you get a Zoom link prior to the webinar.

Thursday May 14th – 10am – 11:30am – https://anshome.org/events/advocacy-101-for-hoas-may2020/
Wednesday June 17th – 7pm – 8:30pm – https://anshome.org/events/advocacy-101-for-hoas-june2020/

ANS is asking for a nominal donation of $5-$15 to support their conservation work for this webinar, but it will be worth your while! There is much to learn about a long-term successful approach to driving change locally. This webinar will be geared toward community associations, but the skills are translatable broadly for advocacy work you seek to do on your own.

Bird Behavior Course – Webinar

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With: Bill Young 
When: May 20, 21, 27, 28; June 3, 4, 10, 11, 7:00 to 8:00 PM
Fee: $40 for all sessions
Register here

Join Audubon Society of Northern Virginia for 8 one-hour sessions examining a variety of bird behaviors, including avian feeding, reproduction, migration, visual and auditory displays and more. Each session will feature video, audio and photographs to help people learn about the many aspects of bird behavior. Classes will draw on the knowledge Bill has gained from birding locally and on all seven continents.

Instructor: Bill Young is a writer who lives in Arlington. He is the author of The Fascination of Birds: From the Albatross to the Yellowthroat (Dover, 2014). He is the co-creator of the MPNature.com website, which contains information about birds, plants and other aspects of the natural history at Monticello Park in Alexandria. Bill also makes nature videos, and his YouTube channel has had over half a million views.

Sustainable Landscaping Solutions for Faith Communities, June 14

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When: June 14, 2:00-4:30 pm

Where: Either via videoconference or St. Peter’s in the Woods, Fairfax Station, VA

Join Plant NoVa Natives as they discuss how and why faith communities are using their places of worship to demonstrate stewardship of the Earth. Learn more.

Native Bee Species Ebb and Flow with Native Plants Bloom: A Year’s Calendar with Sam Droege, watch webinar

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Zoom Video Conference
Held Thursday, 14 May 2020
Watch recorded presentation

All of our nearly 500 species of native bees are dependent on pollen to feed their young. No flowers, no bees. Like flowers, each bee species has its season. During a bee’s flight time they are often dependent on the pollen from only a small group of plants, ignoring the rest.

What you plant has consequences for the bees you support on your property. Travel through a year in the region, tracking the flowers and their bees, or…the bees and their flowers (depending on your point of view!)

Sam Droege has been spent most of his career at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. He has coordinated the North American Breeding Bird Survey Program, developed the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program, the BioBlitz, Cricket Crawl, and FrogwatchUSA programs and worked on the design and evaluation of monitoring programs. Currently he is developing an inventory and monitoring program for native bees, online identification guides for North American bees at www.discoverlife.org, and with Jessica Zelt reviving the North American Bird Phenology Program. His group maintains high resolution photographs of insects and other macro natural history objects at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/.

Continuing education credit available for master naturalists.

Create Helpful Habitat with Native Planting, Virtual Learning

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Looking for a reason to get out into nature?  How about making your property more wildlife-friendly by adding plants native to Virginia?  Find out why this is important during this webinar hosted by Audubon Society of Northern Virginia’s Audubon at Home program. The webinar was recorded on Earth Day, Wednesday, April 22, 2020, and is also is in celebration of our partnership with Green Muslims during National Arab-American Heritage Month.

Watch the webinar! Master naturalists earn one hour of continuing education credit.

Natives Knoll Project

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By Sherry McDonald

Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? In this case a ‘plan and a planting’.

Sally Berman knee deep in the knoll

In September 2019 the FMN Communications team gave a shout out to FMN membership that South Run Recreational Center wished to improve the health and heartiness of a barren, unattractive knoll on the center’s grounds. I became a ‘first-responder’ to that call and I am excited to report that shovels, hoes, and rakes are in full swing and the patient is recovering nicely.

I worked on this project with both Sally Berman, Lead Landscaping Volunteer and Joseph (Kurt) Lauer, Volunteer Coordinator for the Park Authority at South Run and we became fast friends. Sally mentioned to me it was as much an education as it was fun for her. The project demonstrated to Sally the benefits of native plantings and I was able to exposit how emergent processes are created between native insects and birds and animals and even the soil, that are not as viable when incorporating non-natives only.

Natives Knoll in Work

The goals of the project were to transform a weedy, unsightly knoll into an attractive landscape and stabilize the soil to prevent erosion using native plants.With guidance from Matt Bright who runs the non-profit Earth Sangha (which grows native plants for our area) a plan was developed and South Run RECenter purchased more than 90 native plants for this project.  Even with the uncertainty of consistent help due to COVID-19 restrictions, volunteers (high school students, church family and friends) have been working to create the “Natives Knoll”, the whole time following social distancing guidelines. 

Sherry McDonald

As the project nears completion I reflect on how therapeutic gardening has always been for me and how it is a haleness that Sally shares as well. The hope is that when the park re-opens people will stop by to view this emerging Natives Knoll and increase their awareness to the benefits of native plant-scapes. Future steps and goals are to incorporate plant signage and potentially qualify the project as a certified Audubon at Home wildlife sanctuary. As the knoll attracts birds, pollinators and human benefactors, perhaps some of the latter will be inspired to join our landscaping team to share in the knoll’s continued growth.

Just for fun: Two nature photography events

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Article and photos by Barbara J. Saffir (c)

Critters (& more) Challenge

LIFE’S TOO EASY RIGHT NOW! Right? Of course not. But to take our minds off the pandemic, here’s a nature photography CHALLENGE! From May 1 to May 31, try to photograph as many of the following as you can while social distancing, abiding by all CDC & locale jurisdiction rules, and following ethical photography guidelines. Most of these critters, birds, plants, & landscapes can be found in your own neighborhood or nearby.

Please join the Meetup BEFORE MAY 18 and then upload your photos (1 per category) to our Meetup album by May 31. Each find counts ONE point. The “extra credit” categories count FIVE points each. The photographer with the most points who uploads her/his photos by 5/31 at 11:59 p.m. wins. FIRST-PLACE WINNER GETS BRAGGING RIGHTS — AND FIVE (5) FREE PHOTO OUTINGS after our lockdown is lifted and before 5/31/21. SECOND-PLACE WINNER GETS TWO FREE OUTINGS. (Safaris usually cost $5 within 100 miles of the Beltway and $10 outside.)

More information here

“Indoor” Critter Hunt

Look inside your computer, tap your cloud storage, and stroll down memory lane on your external drives for photos of critters & birds that you took ANYTIME for this virtual hunting expedition. RSVP for this critter hunt, upload one photograph per category into this Meetup album, and receive one point. The wildlife photographer with the most points by 5/31/20 at 11:59 pm wins bragging rights and two free photo safaris before 5/31/21. A tie(s) will be decided by the equivalent of a coin toss.

More information here

Message from Fairfax Master Naturalist Chapter President, Joe Gorney

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Photo (c) by Barbara J. Saffir

Chapter Members,

I hope this message finds you well. We are navigating stressful and challenging times, in which lives are disrupted and business-as-usual is no longer an option. Additionally, everyone’s circumstances are different. We might all be in the same storm, but we’re not all in the same boat.

Despite these challenges, and to help weather this storm, I encourage you to take advantage of available activities and resources. Here are a few ideas:

  • VMN Webinars: learn (or relearn) from their many on-line offerings;
  • Plant a Garden: take advantage of no-contact plant deliveries/pick-ups and increase the habitat value of your yard or deck;
  • Read a Book: immerse yourself in the writings of some of the many excellent nature authors.

The FMN Board is also working to coordinate a virtual Zoom meeting on the evening of May 28th. We hope that many people can participate.

As we move through the year (and into next year), we expect a long transition back to our “normal” activities, with interim measures to keep everyone safe. (I think of this period as a marathon, or an ultra-marathon, and not a sprint.) Throughout this, we will take our cue from our sponsoring state agencies and our health experts.

Finally, we just commemorated the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. I thank you for taking care of yourself and the world around you every day and look forward to meeting again, even if only virtually. I also look forward to the future when we can recommence all our community work. In the meantime, take care of yourself and those around you.

Stay-at-Homeschooling for Grown-Ups

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Article by Plant NOVA Natives

We have all heard of naturalists such as Charles Darwin and James Audubon who undertook long and fruitful journeys of discovery. But did you know that many naturalists made their famous discoveries in their own yards? For example, Jean-Henri Fabre spent decades at his home in France on a small plot of hard scrabble where he documented numerous observations of insect behavior that are still read today for their wit as well as their fascinating conclusions about instinct and intelligence. The same opportunities for adventure are available to any of us who have access to any space – however small – where plants can grow.
 
You might think that by now the millions of human beings who live in our region would have figured out all there is to know about the local flora and fauna, but that is far from the case. Not only are new species being discovered all the time, but there is very little known about many of the ones we do recognize. Why not try your hand at natural science? Unlike Jean-Henri, who mostly had to go it alone, we have the ability to crowd-source our learning process by way of a giant citizen science project called iNaturalist. Who knows, you may be the next to discover a new species!
 
For most of us, however, the adventure will lie not in rarities but in finally noticing the common plants and animals in our yard which have been there all along. The joy will come not so much from our contributions to science – which are real if we document life on iNaturalist or on any of a number of other citizen science projects – but from witnessing how many more things there are in heaven and earth than were dreamt of in our philosophy.
 
The main tool needed for this exploration is patience. A small yard may be home to hundreds or thousands of species, but they will not all present themselves at once. Plants of course emerge and develop over the growing season. Animals also emerge at different times, and many remain hidden from view. As you amble around your yard, take a close look at every little moving object. You will find that what you had assumed were identical little specks are in fact many different species going about their business. A camera, even a cell phone camera, can show you the details of pattern and color that your eye cannot register during your brief encounters. There is something irresistibly calming in watching this world at work.
 
If you have the opportunity to compare your yard to a neighbor’s, you may notice a pattern. Yards that appear lush to the modern eye are sometimes just Potemkin landscapes, ones where humans have labored to exclude nature by substituting ecologically useless (or even harmful) plants for the natives, removing the life-giving detritus, and attacking the remaining residents with chemicals. Even in yards such as those, signs of life will be stirring. But where such chemicals are avoided and where native plants are encouraged, a yard will support a cornucopia of animation, from tiny beetles to nesting songbirds. It is not difficult to create a yard with these happy conditions. To borrow a quote from suffragist Sarah Grimké, writing in 1837, “All I ask of our brethren is, that they will take their feet from off our necks, and permit us to stand upright on that ground which God designed us to occupy.”
 
Between April 24 and 27, people all over the world are coming together to document life on Earth. These are the four days of the annual City Nature Challenge, which in previous years has included a friendly competition between metropolitan areas but this year is simply a celebration of life and unity. We can contribute to the festivities by snapping photos of any wild plants or animals and uploading them to iNaturalist. How many native plants can you spot in your neighborhood? How many bees, birds and other critters can you spot taking advantage of them? Once you have caught the nature bug and find yourself longing for more, you can learn how to add those native plants that support the life on your property by visiting www.plantnovanatives.org. Garden centers – including several that specialize in native plants – are open and ready to help you choose the best ones for your situation.
 
The education we can soak in from the ecosystem of our yards goes far beyond a science lesson. We may observe that the natural world is at least as much about cooperation and accommodation as it is about tooth and claw. To recognize our fellow beings as individuals, each with the same claim on life as our own; to witness the interdependence of us all in our unfathomable complexity; to start to see our place in the universe – all these experiences wash away our tension and plant in us the seeds of compassion. It goes without saying that it is not just grown-ups who can benefit from these lessons.
 
 

Letter to My Great, Great Grandchild

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For those of you able to enter the physical natural world through poetry, J.P. Grasser has published a poem that may resonate with you. The work of his fellow poets, living and gone, is also accessible on Poem a Day.