“If you go down to the woods today …” you’ll be better off with an understanding of Basic Field Skills! That was the purpose of LMN-NE’s July 18th workshop at Black Bayou Lake National Wildlife Refuge. This five hour course is supposed to help participants derive greater value from their nature expeditions and as we develop as Naturalists, impart greater value to others through our interpretation. This is traditionally one of our most popular workshops and one of the most “hands-on” with plenty of experiential learning in the field work.
Classroom instruction from 9 AM to 12 Noon consisted of instruction on the art of Nature Journaling from Kimberly Paxton, Interpretation 101, and Certification from Charles Paxton, and about half of the illustrated talk focused on Citizen Science from Dr. Bette Kauffman.
The afternoon’s practical Field Skills field work put the theory into practice with a capstone project that documented points of interest on The Wildlife Trail at Black Bayou Lake National Wildlife Refuge. Dr. Anna Hill had requested that we help Friends of Black Bayou with documenting points of interest on one of the refuge’s most popular and frequently used trails.
Marked in purple on the Refuge Trail Guide map, the Wildlife Trail wends its way, snake-wise through some of the most accessible bottomland forest in Louisiana with a very sturdy boardwalk (thank you D.O.T) elevating the visitors’ safe passage through cypress and tupelo swamp that’s populated with wading birds, snakes, Golden-silk Orbweavers , Garden Spiders, White-tailed Deer, Broadheaded Skinks, talkative Horned Passalid beetles, fungi, flowers, Barred owls and much else besides! The course participants are producing interpretive materials from their data and impressions for use in environmental education.
