February 2022

Below, we present some of the 2021 data through a table of quantitative outputs and an impact statement that was submitted to Virginia Cooperative Extension and other sponsors.  To learn about more stories of volunteers and their projects, check out our 2021 VMN Program Awards announcement.

​Relevance

Americans’ interest in nature is growing. There is a large constituency of people, both urban and rural, engaged in non-consumptive uses of natural resources such as birdwatching, and studies show this population is growing.  Due to the pandemic, parks and natural areas in Virginia experienced record visitation in the last two years, and people also sought new ways to connect with nature at home.  Research also shows, however, that Americans still face a significant gap between their interest in nature and their ability and opportunities to pursue that interest.  Individuals need opportunities to be actively involved in exploring, caring for, and observing nature in their local communities.  Furthermore, because the most impactful experiences in nature are deeply social, opportunities to connect people with nature through social groups are needed.  

At the same time, Virginia is facing difficult natural resource challenges, such as loss of forestland, sea level rise, and invasive species impacts. State and local natural resource agencies need help to accomplish their missions, address these natural resource challenges, and reach more sectors of our population. Public engagement is critical to successful conservation and management of Virginia’s woods, wildlife, and waters.

Response

The Virginia Master Naturalist (VMN) program addresses these needs by supporting a statewide corps of volunteers providing education, outreach, and service dedicated to the beneficial management of natural resources and natural areas within their communities. With 30 chapters across Virginia, the program aims to extend the capacities of both state and local natural resource agencies and organizations to be able achieve their missions in new ways, engage new audiences, and work towards creating a citizenry more informed about and involved in natural resource conservation and management.  The program, because of its chapter-based structure, also promotes learning about, exploring, and stewarding natural areas through social groups.  

Every year, hundreds of Virginians become new VMN volunteers through training and service. The process for becoming a Certified VMN typically takes 6 to 12 months. One starts by completing a 40-hour basic training course offered by one the local chapters of the program. An additional 8 hours of continuing education and 40 hours of volunteer service are also required to become certified or recertified, though this requirement was halved in 2021 in recognition of the limitations on service due to the pandemic.  Volunteer service hours are recorded in four primary areas: education, stewardship, citizen science, and chapter administration. At the statewide level, the program is sponsored by seven state agencies, and on the local level, chapters partner with dozens of conservation and education organizations.

Results

The VMN program currently has approximately 2,100 volunteers who reported service in 2021. These volunteers completed more than 25,000 hours of training and continuing education in 2021. They also contributed significant volunteer time in the areas of education, citizen science, stewardship, and chapter administration, amounting to more than $5.2 million in contributions to natural resource conservation in Virginia (based on IndependentSector.org value of a volunteer hour.) Since the program’s inception in 2005, VMN volunteers have contributed more than 1.6 million hours of service with a value of $43 million to the Commonwealth of Virginia. 

Below, we have listed the volunteers (alphabetically, by chapter) who have achieved these milestones between August and December, 2021.  The list is based on information in our Better Impact volunteer management system.   

These volunteers have done extraordinary levels of service! We want to particularly acknowledge the achievements of Margaret Chatham, Gary Driscole, Judy Jones, Steven Bridges, and Alex Newhart, all new members of the VMN Golden Circle based on their contributions of more than 5,000 hours of service each!

Thank you to Tiffany Brown, VMN Program Assistant, for compiling these lists!

On June 20, 2014, President Obama issued a Presidential Memorandum instructing federal agencies to work to protect the health of pollinators on federal lands. It is difficult to protect what one does not know one has, so in 2015, the Blue Ridge Parkway, assisted by the Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center (AHSLC), launched the first of a series of pollinator inventories to better understand the distribution and habitat use of pollinators along the length of the Parkway, recruiting community scientists to collect most of the samples.

Flies of the family Syrphidae (a.k.a. hover flies or flower flies) may be second only to native bees as important pollinators of native plants. There are over 6,300 described species in this family world-wide and about 288 species that possibly occur along the Blue Ridge Parkway. This family includes small to large flies, many of whom are excellent mimics of bumblebees, yellow jackets, honeybees, and wasps, though some look more like small house flies. In addition to adult flower flies pollinating flowers, some flower fly larvae help decompose logs or improve water quality in ponds and wetlands. Some larvae even feed on ant larvae, aphids, or fresh tree sap. The adult flies do not bite nor can they sting, but some of the mimic species not only look like a bee or wasp but mimic the flight patterns, behavior, and buzz of the bee or wasp they are modeling.

A project conducted by the lab of Dr. Jenni Geib of Appalachian State University in 2019 to inventory native bees produced many flower fly specimens as by-catch. At the same time, the Field Guide to the Flower Flies of Northeastern North America (Skevington et al., 2019) was published, making it possible for naturalists with some entomological training to identify this group to species for the first time. Thus in 2020, the Parkway and AHSLC launched a pilot study to inventory flower flies with the goal of developing a species list for the Parkway and to begin to understand the distribution and hot-spots for these flies. The pandemic put this effort on hold before field work really got started, but it was relaunched in 2021 (BLRI-2021-SCI-0011) and successfully completed in November, with the assistance of the lab of Dr. Geib.  Community science volunteers were recruited from the Virginia Master Naturalist Program and from a group of known volunteers who had worked on previous biodiversity inventory projects.

During 2021, five Virginia Master Naturalists made over 30 visits to sites along the Blue Ridge Parkway to assist with this flower fly inventory.  Together they identified 35 species, four of which were not identified by others working on this project.  All told, 1,000 specimens have been examined to date, and 66 taxa have been documented along the Parkway, with more expected as students at Appalachian State University finish sorting through specimens picked up by the 2019 native bee inventory project that Virginia Master Naturalists also assisted on.  A few of the taxa can clearly be designated as representing a “new species” for the Parkway.

The flower fly project may continue in 2022 and there may be sections of the Parkway where we will need help.  Contact Paul Super if you are a VMN located near the Blue Ridge Parkway and would like to volunteer for this effort.

​At the annual VMN conference this year a favorite activity was the chat room. The chat room was a sub-area of the conference where attendees could start discussions on topics of interest. Since the conference was virtual discussions could occur in real time or asynchronously. 

Mary Jane Poulter had already been thinking about writing an article for the Central Piedmont Chapter’s Newsletter about a naturalist’s toolkit – “What do you carry when you go out into the field?”  Marilyn Parks reached out to Mary Jane via the chat room and said she had been collecting information and was also thinking of writing a “What’s in Your Backpack” article for the Fairfax Chapter!  The two shared emails and decided going forward with an article should be less of a story and more of a list. 

Here is the list that was developed. The items that you decide to pack in your knapsack will vary with the focus of the activity, with the environment where the activity is occurring, with the time of the year, and with the planned length of the activity. Sometimes you may only need a light knapsack and other times you may want a backpack. Whatever the plan is for the activity, you should always plan for the unexpected!

So, what is in your knapsack? Did we forget anything? Feel free to send additions and comments to Mary Jane Poulter. 

Possibilities for Your Toolkit

Gear

• Appropriate clothing – long/short pants, long sleeved shirts, shoes that can get wet, hat, gloves, good walking shoes/water shoes
• Bug, tick spray
• Sunscreen and lip balm
• Tissues
• Zip lock bags to keep knapsack items dry and organized
• Plastic bags for picking up litter
• Large plastic or “dry bag” if needed for protecting backpack from wet ground or rain
• Water
• Food bars
• Identification
• Driver’s license
• Health insurance cards
• Emergency contact phone numbers
• Your VMN emergency contact card (consider tucking it into your cell phone cover)

Safety Equipment

• Smartphone, optionally with portable charger or extra battery.
• Map and compass and/or GPS if out of cell range
• Basic first aid kit (band-aids, antiseptic wipes, butterfly bandages, gauze and tape, antihistamine for allergic reactions, and an emergency blanket)
• Emergency reflective blanket
• Flashlight
• Few pieces of hard candy if needed for diabetic need
• VMN emergency card and incident report form

Observational Equipment

• Journal and pencils/pen
• Field Guide
• Hand lens
• Binoculars
• Dip net
• Small tape measure or ruler (to document size of tracks, leaves, and other; to provide perspective; and for later display and identification)
• Flashlight or headlamp
• Poker/ chop stick for poking into a crevice

Apps for identification

• Seek
• Leaf
• iNaturalist
• eBird
• Merlin
• Flora of Virginia

Apps for geography/navigation

• Apple Maps
• Google Maps
• Google Earth
• Hiking or map app for offline use