Worms & Vermicomposting
Saturday, Oct 14, 2023
Despite heavy rains today, we had a large turnout at our Worms & Vermicomposting class which was held at the newly renovated Posseclay Interpretive shelter at Occoneechee State Park. Virginia Master Naturalist Melina shared her knowledge and passion for worms which play a critical role in nature’s recycling business. Melina covered natural history, biology, and ecosystem services provided by worms. Melina helped guests make worm composting bins, complete with worms to take home. This class is part of the Wildlife Education series sponsored by Friends of Occoneechee State Park. Wewere able to offer this class free to the public since class materials were funded Microsoft Changex grant.
Thanks to Changex grant, we were able to purchase two Youth size archery bows so that we can include younger participants who don’t have the draw strength that is required for adult bows.
Archery 101 class is offered at Occoneechee park on Oct 7, 14, 21. It is a great outdoors sport for local youths to learn under watchful eyes of a certified instructor. Classes are offered for free to local community.
Two more Wildlife education events coming up in October at Occoneechee park. Changex grant is helping to cover cost for the supplies needed in the classes thereby enabling us to offer this education free to the community.
Worms and Vermicomposting
Saturday, October 14, 1:00 – 3:00 p.m.
Location: Occoneechee State Park Visitor Center, 1192 Occoneechee Park Rd, Clarksville
This event, hosted by the Friends of Occoneechee State Park, will introduce guests to worms and vermicomposting (worm composting). Virginia Master Naturalist Melina will share her knowledge and passion for these important organisms, covering natural history, biology, and ecosystem services provided by worms. Melina will then help guests make worm composting bins, complete with worms, which they will be able to take home. Class is free but RSVP is required. Please call the park office at (434) 374-2210 to register.
Bluebirds 101: Preparing for Winter
Saturday, October 21, 10:00 – Noon
Location: Occoneechee State Park Visitor Center, 1192 Occoneechee Park Rd, Clarksville
Have you ever wondered what happens to Virginia’s Eastern Bluebirds in winter? The Friends of Occoneechee State Park and Southern Piedmont Master Naturalists invite you to learn all about bluebirds through the seasons. You will meet the Virginia Master Naturalists who maintain and monitor Occoneechee State Park’s Bluebird boxes. In addition to the basics of Bluebird biology and breeding habits, they will provide hands-on demonstrations and information about cleaning and preparing your bluebird boxes for the winter/post-breeding season. Come prepared for a gentle walk to visit bluebird boxes along Occoneechee’s Bluebird trail.
Mark your calendar for this future Wildlife Education event.
AWARE Animal Rehabilitation Event
September 23, 2023, 1:00-3:00 p.m. (Rain Date Sept 30)
Location: Occoneechee State Park
Changex grant is helping to fund this upcoming AWARE event. Alliance of Wild Animal Rehabilitators & Educators (AWARE) will bring their rescued and rehabilitated “animal ambassadors” and explain the important role that every animal plays in our ecosystem and the importance of saving wild spaces to coexist with wildlife. This big event is for adults and children of all ages and is sure to be thrilling and enlightening—a great way to interact with animals up close and personal. The event is free to the public.
Wildlife Education Series presents ‘Scats and Track’ event at Occoneechee park on Aug 26th from 10am-2pm. This is a free community event to educate families on the wild animals that live at our local park. Even though you might not see them, we can learn how to identify them by animal signs. Thanks to changex grant, we were able to purchase Education material including rubber replicas of scats and tracks representing our local wildlife including foxes, rabbit, porcupine, skunks, deer, turkey, raccoons , possums, bear, beaver, otter, squirrel, bobcat, coyote, etc. The kits included laminated animal signs identification cards which can used during a hike where kids can find and identify an animal. We have invited animal experts from Dept of Wildlife to give presentation at the park. Kids will learn about career opportunities that involve protecting our wildlife and their habitats.
We had a great turnout for the Owls of Virginia wildlife education class on July 11th. Lots of local families in attendance to learn all about the various owls that live amongst us around our community. Thanks to Changex grant, we were able to purchase a portable projector which was needed for the slide presentation. Plus kids absolutely enjoyed being able to touch a skull of a ‘Barred owl’ . The skull replica was funded by Changex grant as well. The goal of this education was to entice curiosity of our local night creatures and to explain how it is important for a community to maintain our local forest as the owls require old trees with holes to provide habitat so they can thrive. Also, the class was a good chance for young people to meet our local conservation rangers and to understand how their job role benefits our community and wildlife habitat.
Kids enjoying the Wildlife education event “ Touch Table-Animals of Occoneechee Park”which involves learning about the various wild mammals that inhabit the surrounding natural area. The kids get to touch the furs of various animals and learn how the color of their fur helps them blend in with their natural surroundings. Also, they can feel the difference between fur of animals that live on land like possum, fox & deer versus the fur of animals that spend most time in water like otter and beaver. Goal of this session is to impress on the kids the diversity of wildlife living around them and how conservation of wildlife habitats are important so that these wild animals can survive. We used changex grant funds to purchase additional skin and skulls to add to the collection so that we covered all of the primary wild animals that live on the local park area. Changex funds were also helpful in purchasing chalkboard signage that help us advertise the wildlife event at the park. This particular wildlife event is easy to setup and repeat and thus can offer multiple times throughout summer at the park so to maximize attendance. Volunteers are teamed with park staff to continue to design additional wildlife events for the community.
Meeting with park staff to plan additional Wildlife Education sessions during the summer months. The local kids are out of school on summer vacation and many parents are searching for fun, free, outdoors kids activities. Wildlife Education series are great opportunity for parents to continue their kids’ learning even during their summer vacation. Using changex grant monies to buy portable battery operated projector to use for outdoor education in the park shelter. Also, used grant funds to purchase additional wildlife items like beaver skull, owl skull, skunk skin, animal tracks & scats to add to existing inventory and plan to offer weekly wildlife sessions called Wildlife Touch table and Nature IQ. Also purchasing several binoculars to enhance the wildlife trail hike. We can reuse tables and signage and displays that we purchased for prior event.
Honeybee education - The honey bee exhibit included a fascinating live beehive where kids could view the inner workings of a bee colony. The beekeepers demonstrated intriguing hive tools that they use for various purposes. Attendees got to see an actual hive box and demonstration of using a nuc box to establish a new beehive. There was a vacuum tool on display which is used to extract wild bee colonies from attics and walls and a tiny screened box with a candy stopper
that is used to introduce a new queen bee to an existing colony.
And to make for fun event, we set up numerous bee related kids craft activity tables.
Wildlife Education series- All about Bees!
Our goal of bee education was to reach out to families to share knowledge on the importance of our bee pollinators and their specific biology but also introduce attendees to the hobby of beekeeping.
We had several bee-related exhibits - one highlighting native specialty bees and the other honeybees. We invited Master Naturalist to educate on native bees and local beekeepers to present on honeybees. We invited other organizations like Master Food volunteers to demonstrated healthy honey-based recipes and 4-H club youths to help with bee-related kids crafts.
The native bee exhibit emphasized the large population of specialty bees that have evolved over millions of years in our local region and explained how each one plays a specific but very critical role in our unique ecosystem. After listening to the presentation, one learns how importance of maintaining native plants and natural surrounding to provide food and shelter so they can survive. Kids got an appreciation that the future of our food supply and local ecosystem depends heavily on the health of these tiny specialty bees.
The honey bee exhibit included a fascinating live beehive where kids could view the inner workings of a bee colony. The beekeepers demonstrated intriguing hive tools that they use for various purposes. Attendees got to see an actual hive box and demonstration of using a nuc box to establish a new beehive. There was a vacuum tool on display which is used to extract wild bee colonies from attics and walls and a tiny screened box with a candy stopper that is used to introduce a new queen bee to an existing colony.
Also to emphasize the value of honeybees, we invited our local Master Food volunteers to demonstrate healthy honey-based recipes. The attendees enjoyed free honey-berry smoothies and honey cookies.
And to make for fun event, we set up numerous bee related kids craft activity tables.
Butterflies and Moths! As part of our Wildlife Education series, we invited an expert from Virginia Museum of Natural History to join us at the park to educate our community on the wide variety of butterflies and moths that nature has to offer. In addition to a large exhibit highlighting our native butterflies and moths, he had a display of fascinating tropical butterflies. Kids got to see how butterflies start out as tiny little eggs on a leaf that turns into a caterpillar then forms a cocoon which then transform into a butterfly. Attendees also got a lesson in museum preservation. The expert explained that many of his specimens were over a 100 years old and by keeping the specimens in an airtight container and limiting the UV light, these specimens can be kept for many years to come. The expert did emphasize to the attendees that many of these beautiful butterfly species are endangered.
To encourage community members that might be financially challenged to attend our Pollinator education event, we worked with the Occoneechee park staff to supply 50 free park entrance passes. We teamed with our local social services and food pantry volunteers to get these passes distributed to families in advance of our event.
Pollinators in the Park! On June 25th is our next Wildlife Education event at Occoneechee park. We are busy designing and building displays to educate and build awareness about our local pollinators. The changex funds have helped purchase sturdy trifold displays that are perfect for outdoors education events. Pictures attached are examples of our displays. One display is highlighting various native plant garden ideas which are designed to support our native pollinators like butterflies and specialty bees, hummingbirds. The other display emphasizes the importance of leaf litter that provides overwintering habitat for many native insects like caterpillars which turn into native butterflies & moths and other eco-friendly bugs like beetles, fireflies & snails need the leaf litter to survive the winter.
Next Wildlife Education Event is on June 25th held at Occoneechee park. We are highlighting pollinators that are found in our local region. Since this is one of our larger education events, we have advertised our event flyer in our local newspaper plus included an article that explains the decline in pollinators and why it is important for communities to take steps in protecting our pollinators. We have used changex funds to help pay the pollinator themed kids craft activities, educational trifold displays, tables and other items needed for the venue. Many community members have volunteered help with the exhibits and activities.
June 3rd Education event- Learning about Arthropods - We had an exciting outdoors wildlife education event at our park on June 3rd to promote interest in Entomology and learned about Arthropods which is the biggest group of invertebrates. The program included a Bug Safari where participants searched for insects (ants, beetles, lightning bugs, grasshoppers, flies), arachnids(spiders), crustacean(roly-poly bug) and myriapods(millipedes, centipedes). Kids discovered fun facts about these bugs and found out that these bugs play a very critical role in our local ecosystem such as decomposers that break down decaying wood & dead plants that helps build healthy soil. The kids learned that bugs are a critical food source for local wildlife. Later this month, we will hold another wildlife education event (Pollinators in the Park! ) that will highlight insects which are critical for pollination such as butterflies, honey bees, bumblebees and other native specialty bees. The impact of these events is to provide education on the critical ecological role that bugs play and build awareness of the massive decline in insect population. This awareness will help promote a respect for our local bug population and will translate into developing best practices like providing more backyard foraging/nesting resources, reduce water and light pollution, less use of pesticide and other conservation practices.
