Aquatic Ecosystems - Final NCS

9/27 10 a.m. Sunny & warm

Christina riverfront, Wilmington - DuPont Environmental Education Center

We started our final naturalist certification class, on aquatic ecosystems, in a new location, the DuPont Environmental Education Center, managed by Delaware Nature Society. Lesley runs the education programs at DEEC, and she was our guide for this half of the day, which would end by exploring the aquatic ecosystems at Ashland. She gave us a bit of history and an overview from DEEC’s third floor balcony, overlooking the Russell Peterson Wildlife Refuge that makes up this corner of Delaware’s biggest city.

The building has been open for five years, and the marsh refuge and education center took a decade to become reality. Lesley said former Gov. Russell Peterson, then in his 80s, attended the opening celebration and said one sentence about it being nice to get it done, then immediately turned to his current concern, saying “now we need to talk about climate change.” It seems to me that his attitude, as much as his legacy embodied in the Coastal Zone Preservation Act, make Gov. Peterson a terrific person to have named the marsh after.

прогулянка в лісі

Last weekend I took a group of Ukrainian scouts out for three hikes at Ashland, and it was a terrific weekend all around.The kids were interested and knowledgeable, and the hikes complemented the programs (about nocturnal animals and birds) quite well. I had been nervous when I found out I would have to lead one group on a bird walk by myself Sunday morning - there’s no doubt I’m still building my birding skills - but even that ended up being an enjoyable and valuable walk.

First, though, was a Saturday night hike following the nocturnal animals presentation. The scout group was big, with a couple dozen kids and at least half that many parents, so we split into three groups since we had three teacher naturalists. Jessica and Rob took their groups through the marsh, though in different directions, and to make sure we didn’t have too much of a traffic jam, I set out the other direction to take my group up the hill and through the woods before we all met at the campfire site.

Trees & Shrubs, so many trees and shrubs

9/13/14 Ashland Hockessin, DE

Overcast, cool

At the end of this trees and shrubs field trip, many of my classmates voiced what we were probably all feeling - our brains were full. It was not quite a three-hour walk, but we had seen a staggering number of plants, learning how to identify them, and in my case, forgetting most of them again. This will be an ongoing learning process, no question.

Late Summer Wildflowers

August 28, 2014 Ashland Nature Center. Hockessin, Delaware

5:29 p.m. sunny with no clouds in the sky

The wildflowers course for the naturalist certification series was arranged a bit differently from our other lectures and field trips. Rather than learn a bit about the environments where we would likely find flowers and information on the plants themselves, both the lecture and the time in the field were focused on identification. We learned how to use a handy little book, Newcomb’s Guide to Wildflowers, which has a system based on examining the structure of a plant’s flower and leaves to narrow down what species it must be. Joe taught the class and recommended the Stokes Guide to Enjoying Wildflowers for further information about the flowers identified with Newcomb’s, and that was my first source for the information below.

Two ordinary, excellent weekends

We have entered a stretch with naturalist certification classes every two weeks as we wrap up the class, and I have a dozen wildflowers from my last class I need to research and write up here. But before I get too far into that project, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the past two weekends, when I had the chance to take a couple groups of kids around Ashland.

I haven’t written about these hikes in a while, mostly because the scout and community groups that come for the overnight programs really slow down in the summer. But the two groups in August reminded me of why I am excited to work as a teacher-naturalist for the Delaware Nature Society.

Insect Hike

9 August 2014 Ashland Nature Center, Hockessin, DE

9 a.m. Sunny, 71 F

We started our morning insect walk in the auditorium at Ashland for an overview of collection methods, which was helpful for me since I had missed the lecture. From the first, it was useful information, as we learned that the mesh nets and the canvas nets we use with groups are not just a matter of preference but are designed for different jobs, which should have been obvious, in retrospect, but had not occurred to me. (Mesh nets are aerial nets, for catching insects in flight or when they have landed on top of vegetation. The canvas nets are used for sweeping through grasses and other vegetation, the way I am most accustomed to collecting at Ashland.)

The other methods we learned were interesting but not immediately applicable, pit traps and funnels, lights for collecting insects at night. With the overview done, the group grabbed aerial nets and jars and headed outside. The plan for the morning was to walk through four different habitats, starting with the gardens around the nature center.

Tiger swallowtail

Peck's skipper

The phlox at the beginning of the native pollinator garden was alive with butterflies, tiger swallowtails (Papilio glaucus), black swallowtails (Papilio polyxenes) and Peck’s skippers (Polites peckius).

Birding at Bucktoe Creek Preserve

I missed the Naturalist Certification Series birding field trip, so I made it up by joining a small group on the weekly Sunday morning bird walk at Bucktoe Creek Preserve, in southern Chester County. It was a great experience, and because it is regular and open to the public, I can wholeheartedly encourage anyone who wants to try this themselves to go! We had a friendly, funny and knowledgeable guide, and the half dozen of us along for the walk rounded out a good group from neophytes (my mom and me) to people who could have been guides themselves.

29 June Bucktoe Creek Preserve, Kennett Square

7:55 a.m. 70 degrees F sunny, not a cloud in the sky

We arrived just a few minutes early and found one person had already been sitting at the shelter by the parking lot for a while. It wasn’t a bad place to watch birds even without walking, in fact, as the expansive meadow in front of it, with forest to the left, provides good ecotone habitat for a diversity of birds, and they have set feeders near the shelters that bring near the less shy birds. Before we even set out we had seen a number of red-winged blackbirds, probably nesting in the meadow, tree swallows, barn swallows, and a red-bellied woodpecker that flew overhead.