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The contest is organized by a different volunteer each year, in cojunction with our VMN Statewide Conference and Volunteer Training.  Debbie Pugh, a volunteer in the VMN-Headwaters Chapter, is this year’s coordinator.  She has defined the categories and rules for this year’s contest.  If you or your VMN chapter have not participated in the past, please consider being part of the fun this year!

This year’s contest categories include: 

• Virginia Native Wildlife: This category includes photographs of birds, insects, mammals, amphibians and reptiles. A native Virginia animal, bird, reptile, etc. must be the main subject in the photographs in this category. Non- native species may be in the background only.
• Virginia Native Plant and Fungi World:  This category includes photographs of plants and fungi in their environments. Native Virginia plants or fungi must be the main subject in the photographs in this category. Non-native species may be in the background only.
• Virginia Native Landscapes:  Photographs in this category feature Virginia landscapes as the main subject: natural landscapes, seascapes, the sky (sunsets, sunrises, clouds, etc.), or underwater images.
• Virginia Native Macro and Night Photography:  Submissions to this category include the genres of macro and night photography. Macro photography is defined as creating extreme close-ups of subjects that are very small in real life and the resulting image allows the viewer to see details that are normally hidden from the human eye.  Night photography is defined as capturing photographs outdoors after sunset and before sunrise.
• Virginia Master Naturalists in Action: Photographs that show activities of Virginia Master Naturalists like wildflower walks, training activities, volunteer work, citizen science, stewardship, etc. Photographs for this category must include the VMN volunteer as the main subject doing the activity.

For more description of the contest categories and the complete contest rules, see the 2019 Photo Contest Rules document and the 2019 entry form.

Submitted by Lisa Matthews

This year’s Conservationist of the Year chosen by Prince William Ducks Unlimited is the Merrimac Farm Chapter of the Virginia Master Naturalists, located in Prince William County. 

In the last year alone, the chapter volunteers have held:

• Stream cleanups to include two “Adopt a Stream” projects in the County and five community stream cleanups. They removed 4560 pounds of trash!
• Water Quality Monitoring including five projects this year monitoring stream quality and teaching in schools, scouts, and universities.
• Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience for K-12 students
• Farm Fields Day- a hands-on experience for students
• City Nature Challenge, a worldwide competition to see who can observe the most nature over a 4-day period. This group identified 767 different species in 2018!
• Bluebell Festival, an annual community event run by the Prince William Conservation Alliance at Merrimac Farm Wildlife Management Area. In 2018, the VMN volunteers taught about the rarity of true blue in nature and guided trail events.

Submitted by Tanya Hall, Chief Ranger, Visitor Experience, Hungry Mother State Park

Congratulations to the VMN-Holston Rivers Chapter, the Virginia State Parks 2018 Volunteer Group of the Year!  The chapter has made outstanding volunteer contributions to Virginia State Parks. Over 50% of the members volunteered almost 300 hours in 2018 at Hungry Mother State Park to provide educational programs on birding, edible plants, wildflowers, aquatic insects, survival, leaf litter and numerous other topics. 

They have assisted with field trips, Junior Naturalist programs, VAFP programs, removal of invasive plants and fish, and helped create a natural play area. The Interpretive department would not have been able to host the number nor the quality of programs without this chapter’s time and effort.

Submitted by Shirley Devan

Adrienne Frank, president of the Historic Rivers Chapter, was selected to be profiled by Next Door Neighbors.  The article highlights Adrienne’s service as the president of the chapter, the conservation landscaping work she and her husband Gary Driscole (also a VMN volunteer) have done on their property, and the butterfly-focused education, citizen science, and stewardship projects that she has done.  

The VMN-Shenandoah Chapter was pleased to present Sherry Whitaker, Melanie Schneider, Emma Schneider, and Maya Schneider with the first-ever “3 Generations Award”.  Having a family of Virginia Master Naturalists spanning three generations is quite an honor!

Also, if you are a subscriber to Virginia Wildlife magazine, check out the article in the March/April issue titled “Grassroots: A Story of Virginia’s Working Landscapes”, written by Shenandoah Chapter member Marie Majarov.  Many VMN volunteers across several different chapters participate in the Virginia Working Landscapes citizen science project with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.

(Submitted by Kasha Helget, based on article in Arlington County’s Environment webpage.) 

On April 25, 2019, Arlington Regional Master Naturalist member, Bill Browning, was honored with the 2018 Bill Thomas Outstanding Park Service Volunteer Award for his volunteer work in Arlington. This award was established to pay tribute to lifelong parks volunteer Bill Thomas and to honor and encourage residents with passionate dedication and support for the county’s dynamic programs, natural resources, and public open spaces.

The transformation of Powhatan Springs Park in Arlington, VA could not have happened without Bill Browning. Bill’s leadership in the restoration work at Powhatan Springs Park had led to the clearing of invasive plant species to reintroduce native flora and fauna to the area; adding significantly to Arlington’s rich biodiversity. Bill led citizen science observation events for the City Nature Challenge at Powhatan that engage members of the general public as well as experts in recording all flora and fauna in in the park and other local areas. The newly created brush piles on the site have welcomed wildlife previously unseen at the park, including a Barred Owl. Bill also helped conduct a tree inventory of the entire park; an ARMN colleague subsequently created a GPS version that shows all the native trees and natural features on the site and will facilitate future volunteer and restoration work there.

In addition to his work at Powhatan Springs Park, Bill has performed additional invasive removal work at several other County parks and Culpepper Gardens Senior Living Community in Arlington, stream water monitoring throughout Arlington, work at the native plant garden at Potomac Overlook Regional Park, and seed cleaning and other nursery work for Earth Sangha, a facility propagates native plants for restoration plantings in the area.

Since joining in 2013, Bill has been an active member of the Arlington Regional Master Naturalists and has contributed over 1,000 hours of volunteer service. Bill has been a true leader and welcoming face within the organization, serving as Membership Chair and creating initiatives such as the mentor program. He also increased communications to help new members connect with current members and easily find volunteer opportunities that best fit their interests.
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Always one to further his expertise, Bill recently completed a Certificate of Achievement in Natural History Field Studies through USDA Graduate School and the Audubon Naturalist Society.

• A new partnership with the Pamunkey Tribal Resource Center along with an educational exhibit for the Pamunkey Earth Day celebration
• Earth Day cleanup with Zach Bradford, DCR Preserve Manager at Bethel Beach Natural Area Preserve
• Multiple citizen science projects, such as the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network (CoCoRAHS), FrogWatch USA with the Virginia Living Museum chapter, bird counts, and vernal pool monitoring.  They also are in the process of joining the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative for water quality monitoring.
• Education projects such as helping with Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences for Gloucester County Public Schools, an after-school nature club at an elementary school, and schoolyard habitat programs.  The Gloucester Daffodil Festival with 20,000 visitors was the chapter’s first big outreach event.  The Chapter combined resources with the Gloucester Master Gardeners and Lisa Deaton, Virginia Department of Forestry (VDOF).  Our collective presence, nature activities for children, and VDOF handouts about native plants, pollinator gardens, wildlife brush piles, and fire-wise landscapes were all popular with festival visitors.   An extra special moment happened during this festival when an Eastern tiger swallowtail fluttered through the exhibit right under the Chapter’s brand new banner with this butterfly in the logo. 

In 2018, 1,994 volunteers reported more than 190,000 hours of service, over 28,000 hours of continuing education, and nearly 145,000 face-to-face exchanges of educational information about natural resources.  The volunteers reported stewardship work at 446 sites across Virginia, including local, state, and national parks, local and state natural areas, trails, schoolyards, and more.  Their service in 2018 is valued at  more than $5 million, based on the value of a volunteer hour in Virginia as calculated by IndependentSector.org.

We encourage all of our VMN chapters to check out the City Nature Challenge and consider not just participating, but using it as an opportunity to organize some public events to raise awareness of biological diversity, especially in urbanized areas.

Bioblitzes are probably the best known natural history citizen science events. These are typically periods of biological surveying in an attempt to record all the living species within a designated area. Groups of scientists, naturalists and public volunteers conduct intensive field study over a continuous time period (usually 24 hours) and record what they find. A Bioblitz provides a snap shot in time. While it is certainly not a complete record of what lives in the location, if you take enough snap shots over different times and seasons, you can get a good picture of what is going on there. 

The free iNaturalist app is now more-or-less the standard way for bioblitzes and other citizen science projects to record natural history observations. The beauty of the app is that with a simple uploaded photo, crowd sourcing can then help identify the organism and the observation is recorded so that worldwide any researchers can data mine the info they need. You never know what piece of data you could be providing some researcher somewhere in the world. Here’s a link to various tutorials on how to use the free app: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/video+tutorials.  

Bioblitzes and similar citizen science events such as the City Nature Challenge offer a lot of interpretive opportunities. To begin with, different teams and their leaders can serve as natural history walks and short programs. Indeed, by getting well-known experts and naturalists to lead groups, you can attract a nice group of interested people, some of which you may discover have great skill or knowledge in certain areas and thus might be recruited
as potential long term volunteers.

The central meeting location which many bioblitzes use can also be places for environmental groups to man booths, activity tables, conduct short presentations, games, and distribute information. Some activities can be geared for younger audiences and the novice or general audience who may just want to see some potential program or show. But the area can also serve to show people unique activities or to have unusual specimens brought back for ID and to show others. Indeed, having people bring back invertebrates for an expert to ID can prove to provide neat discoveries for the public to make. If you stagger teams and activities, people may show up interested in one thing, but be introduced into others they may not have thought they were interested in but are willing to try out. Many people my want to take advantage of an opportunity to be part of expert teams and learn from them in the field. Take for example this short look at a fungi ID team during a bioblitz and the process they used which fascinated many people who had no idea about this wonderful group of organisms. Many expressed interest in learning more about these organisms and were fascinated by the myriad of fungi they were introduced to in their local parks.

These type of biotic survey events can also offer great networking and public relations possibilities. Staff from neighboring jurisdictions and environmental groups have often assisted and provided their expertise for events. I myself have also assisted many other jurisdictions and groups in their bioblitzes, City Nature Challenge, or other events. This allows for good networking opportunities, sharing of knowledge, good will, and unofficially “talking shop.” Media often take great interest in these of public events, as shown in the Voice of America video linked above and much coverage of ongoing citizen science events. 

So citizen science special events have great potential as interpretive and media events. They are rewarding to participants while providing potential data for researchers.  The next big opportunity, and it is repeated yearly, is the global City Nature Challenge April 26-29, 2019. So mark your calendars and give it a shot, either personally, as part of one of the many planned events, or perhaps to run an event yourself. More information can be found here: http://citynaturechallenge.org/ though there are many cities with their own individual websites as (here’s the Washington, DC one I’m taking part in again for example: https://citynaturechallengedc.org/) Your own interpretive moments may help to provide valuable data to researchers while helping you and the public discover the wonders of the natural world all around their parks.