Friends of the Middle River is planning to monitor our benthic sites in late September and early October. We always welcome any volunteers who want to pitch in and pick and count critters or just see what we do and how we go about assessing stream health. (The species and quantity of certain aquatic insects…
Aligning with many things Master Naturalists hold dear, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation is offering its first ever class in the valley to become a steward of the Chesapeake Bay. VoiCeS (Volunteers as Chesapeake Stewards) classes will be held weekly for six evenings on Thursdays beginning on October 11 this fall in Verona. The course includes…
“The Virginia Big Tree Program maintains a register of the 5 (now 3) largest specimens of over 300 native, non-native, and naturalized tree species. The register includes information about each tree’s size, location, and unique characteristics. Each tree must be re-certified every 10 years to maintain its status in the register.” – VA Big Tree…
Recap of July 22, 2018, Membership Summer Gathering What started out as an opportunity to gather as many Headwaters Master Naturalists as possible for a summer event, turned into a full day of community building, field trips and continuing education at Grand Caverns Park in Grottoes. Highlights from the day included: Board Meeting with reports…
Just after sunset on July 1, HMNs Peggy Plass and Emily Fugate met at Lake Shenandoah to kick off our latest project—Acoustic Bat Monitoring! Our chapter purchased a handheld bat monitor earlier this summer, and Sunday night marked the first time that it was used to collect data in the field. This spring, the state…
By Cheryl Shull, Cohort V During a recent fishing trip at Elkhorn Lake, my husband and I observed what we believed to be a brown water snake swimming towards us. As I began shooting photos, we quickly realized that we had a timber rattlesnake in our midst. We enjoyed the afternoon watching the snake quietly…
Despite the cool and dry conditions prior to the 2018 Shenandoah Mountain Wildflower Walks on April 28th, three groups of walkers found many species and had a great time in the woods of George Washington National Forest. Prescribed burns scheduled for the Hone Quarry area required us to consider alternative walks, but in the end…
