It was only a matter of time before it showed up here: Fairfax County launches plan to combat invasive spotted lanternfly in parks.
Author: David Gorsline
HR8799
Invasives management at Fraser Preserve
In my newly copious unscheduled time, I’ve been working with Margaret Chatham on invasives removal at Fraser Preserve, at the tippy-top north end of the county. Last week and today we focused on turning Rosa multiflora stems into brush piles. The snow didn’t slow us down much, but my dogs did get a bit frosty.
Field trip and workshop resources in the DMV
Here’s a roundup, somewhat Northern Virginia-inflected, of some organizations that run field trips in the mid-Atlantic.
Nature Forward is our standard-bearer. Workshops and camps for kiddos and families, walks focused on birds/geology/botany/etc., CEU-credited courses in lichens/spring wildflowers/conservation history/etc., overseas travel—something for everyone at nearly every level of expertise. NF is also an important advocate for protection of natural areas in the DC metro.
Some outfits mostly interested in birds:
- Audubon Society of Northern Virginia and DC Audubon Society* are chapters of the National Audubon Society, and there are several chapters in Maryland.*
- Northern Virginia Bird Club’s name tells you what they’re about. In addition to maintaining a calendar of field trips and directory of Christmas Bird Counts, NVBC holds regularly scheduled meetings.
Are you ready for some botany?
- Virginia Native Plant Society is organized into regional chapters. Our local chapter, the largest in the commonwealth, is the Potowmack chapter. Farther outside the Beltway, check out the Prince William Wildflower Society and the Piedmont chapter.
- Maryland Native Plant Society also has a chapter for DC.
Maybe something a little more niche is your interest.
- The Mycological Association of Washington, D.C.,* for fungi enthusiasts, has been recommended to me. Hey, I just joined up!
Or you’re looking for something more fast-paced than the naturalist’s shuffle.
- Some time back, I did one or two hikes with DC Metropolitan Hikers, a Meetup group. And Capital Hiking Club has made the transition from paper newsletters and phone trees to the electronic age.
- Wanderbirds Hiking Club hikes were too fast for me, even when I was young and in good shape.
The Washington metro is a mosaic of publicly-accessible, natural areas under several different jurisdictions. Check out individual parks and recreational areas for scheduled workshops, camps, and events.
- Parks and trails managed by the National Park Service (in Maryland, the District, and Virginia) are more than just Rock Creek Park and Shenandoah National Park.
- The District’s Department of Parks and Recreation manages hundreds of parks.
- Outside DC, parks managed at the county level include those in Arlington County, Fairfax County (including Huntley Meadows Park, which the Mason & Bailey Club visited), and Montgomery County (including Rachel Carson Conservation Park, also visited by the Club).
- Prince George’s County parks fall under the regional Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (MNCPPC).
- The well-loved hike-bike-commute Washington and Old Dominion Trail is part of the regional Nova Parks.
- Zooming out again, consider state parks in Maryland and Virginia. Virginia has gamified visiting as many state parks as you can. I’m working on my 10-park badge.
- And don’t forget privately-held, but open to the public, sites like The Nature Conservancy’s Fraser Preserve and Stronghold’s Sugarloaf Mountain.
*I know these organizations only by referral/search, not by firsthand field trip experience.
Silver Line progress report: 56
I can now report from firsthand knowledge that the Silver Line does indeed go to Ashburn, via IAD.
It’s your list
A reminder from Laura Erickson and Joseph J. Hickey:
The beauty of birding is that there is no right way. Hickey wrote in that inviting first chapter of A Guide to Bird Watching [1943] that birding is “anything you care to make it.”
Free File
It’s income tax season again, and the likes of Turbo Tax and H&R Block are likely to steer consumers into paying for filing their returns when they don’t have to. Here’s an update from Sylvia Kovatch and ProPublica.
Taxpayers can go directly to the IRS to find out what their options are.
I’m going to make this a thing, too
Teachers understand that errors in their learners’ output are normal and complex. They can be… a misapplication of an analogy (e.g., if “let’s do lunch” is correct, then “let’s do sandwich” should be fine also).
—Andrea B. Hellman et al., The 6 Principles for Exemplary Teaching of English Learners: Adult Education and Workforce Development (2019), p. 63
In other news
Yesterday I retired, after eight great years at NPR. Some looks from last walks around the building (sorry, no pix from the newsroom).
New buildings have gone up; you can no longer see the top of the Washington Monument from the 4th floor terrace.
Elissa Nadworny slays again
Oh, the weather outside is frightful
Be advised that I will do what I can to make “colder than Harry’s todger” a thing.
740 calories
Ginia Bellafante is no slouch, either. From the Why We Can’t Have Nice Things Dept., Must We Gentrify the Rest Stop?
Five years ago, the New York State Thruway Authority conducted a survey of more than 2,600 drivers to take measure of the customer experience at the service areas lining the 570 miles of road that make up one of the largest toll highways in the country, stretching from the edge of the Bronx up past Buffalo. Whether participants were traveling for work or for pleasure, they had needs that apparently were going unfulfilled.
Among those who identified as occasional users of the Thruway, more than half said they would like food halls with “local artisan” offerings. Some commuters wanted Blue Apron meal kits. The resulting report listed as chief takeaways that leisure travelers complained about unappealing interiors and the lack of “Instagrammable moments.”
gulzez
John Kelly has the best job in the world. A short history of the Surrender Dorothy vista, followed by chasing the apostrophe in Bojangles (f/k/a Bojangles’ Famous Chicken ‘n Biscuits).
…on some [signs] the apostrophe seemed to float above the S, like the tongue of flame you see on a Renaissance painting of an apostle being visited by the Holy Spirit.
Giving voice to the voiceless
I am mortified that no one else stepped in to do this job, but gratified that Devon Henry was there to do it. White contractors wouldn’t remove Confederate statues. So a Black man did it., by Gregory S. Schneider.
Henry’s mission as the man who finally drove the Confederates out of Richmond was nearly complete. He had a brief, blunt message that morning for the chilly workers as they prepared to do the unusual work that has become so familiar.
“It’s the last one,” he told them. “Let’s do it right and get out of here.”
State it bravely and then act boldly
Goats and Soda, NPR’s plucky little blog that rarely has an audio component and hence can’t be monetized, remembers five inspiring women who went on ahead in 2022.
This is the sort of pure digital work that I fear we (NPR) won’t be able to afford in the current economic situation.