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Identifying Shorebirds with Marc Ribaudo

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Online: 12 and 13 August, 7-8 pm
Fee: $25
Limit: 95
Register: Here for 12 August session and/or Here for 13 August session

This class is recommended for anyone who would like to tackle shorebird identification on their own. Marc will spend two evenings online covering identification tips for shorebirds that can typically be seen in our region. Emphasis will be on shorebirds that pose the biggest identification challenges, such as peeps. He’ll also discuss places to practice and sharpen your new-found skills. A recommended book for this class is The Shorebird Guide by Michael O’Brien, Richard Crossley and Kevin Karlson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006). The Sibley Guide to Birds by David Sibley (Knopf, 2014) is also a good basic field guide.

Instructor: Marc Ribaudo has been birding since he was a teenager in New Jersey in the 1960s. He has a great amount of field experience and is a regular trip leader for the Northern Virginia Bird Club and the Friends of Dyke Marsh.

VMN CE webinar: Building Cultural Competence

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Thursday, 25 July  2019
12:00 pm
Meeting Number: 908-683-587
Link to Join: Join Webinar
Link for recordings of this and past webinars:
VMN Continuing Education Webinar page

This workshop will take an active, participatory approach to building cultural competence. As we walk through the world, our own bias can effect how we interact with people and places. By recognizing our identity, we can increase our ability to create welcoming environments to serve our stakeholders. Building cultural competence can help attract and retain youth and participants from diverse audiences and encourage the Virginia Master Naturalists to expand capacity in their volunteer network to continue managing natural resources and natural areas in their communities.

Dr. Tiffany Drape is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education at Virginia Tech. She conducts research and teaches about program planning and evaluation.

VMN CE webinar: Wilderness Preparation and Safety, July 16th

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Tuesday, July 16, 2019
Noon
Meeting Number: 849-499-650
Link to Join: Join Webinar
Link for recordings of this and past webinars: VMN Continuing Education Webinar Page

Have you led a community group on a wildflower walk in the woods, either on trail or off? Hiked off-trail to retrieve a wildlife camera? Been to a remote corner of your county for a bird or frog survey? Some naturalists spend a lot of time outdoors, occasionally in remote places. Whenever you are going into the field, no matter how short or long of a distance, it’s important to plan ahead and prepare to help you and everyone in your group stay safe. In this session, you’ll learn from an expert about how to plan ahead for your field experiences, as well as what safety-related items to carry with you. While this session won’t substitute for an in-person first aid class, it will help you think through likely risks you might encounter in the field and how to prepare for them.

The presenter is Matt Rosefsky,a certified Wilderness EMT and Geo Medic. He has been a wilderness medicine instructor for MEDIC SOLO Disaster + Wilderness Medical School since 2007, teaching more than 200 courses and more than 3,000 students. He is a volunteer with Blue Ridge Mountain Rescue Group and the Medical Reserve Corps. Over 19 years he has led hundreds of outdoor adventures through groups such as Outdoors at UVA, the Sierra Club, and the Outdoor Adventure Social Club. Backpacking is Matt’s favorite outdoor activity.

Virginia Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases, VMN CE Webinar, Feb. 28th

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Webinar Highlights:

  • tick ecology
  • tick species you may encounter in Virginia and the Mid-Atlantic
  • how to identify these ticks
  • illnesses and conditions associated with each species
  • methods of tick control and their varying success
  • ways to protect yourself from tick bites, and what to do in the event you do get bit.

Please come prepared with any and all tick questions, and the presenter will do her best to answer them.

Presenter:

Alexis White is a senior PhD candidate in the Ecological Sciences PhD program at Old Dominion University, working in Professor Holly Gaff’s lab. Lexi is part of the ODU Tick Research Team; a joint venture between Professors Gaff and Hynes who take a multidisciplinary approach to understanding ticks and tick-borne pathogens in Virginia. She completed her Bachelor’s in Wildlife Biology at Unity College in Maine. Her dissertation focuses on exploring local, finite time control of ticks using both mechanical and biological means.

Webinar Details

When: Thursday, 28 February 2019, 12 pm
Meeting Number: 557-678-365
Link to join: Join Webinar
(This link will connect you to the video feed, but you will need to connect your audio separately to hear the speaker. Zoom will prompt you to do that once you have connected the video feed. For technical help visit the Zoom Support Center.)

Link for recordings of this and past webinars: VMN Continuing Education page