New York Flora Association Blog

We invite your participation in a new research initiative of the Farmscape Ecology Program: a natural history survey of Columbia County. This project is envisioned as a many-year, many people on-going effort to document the plants and animals that share the county with us.

We’ll start small, with a workshop on Saturday, May 30, 1-5 at the Roeliff Jansen Park in Hillsdale. This workshop will give you a chance to meet the coordinators, Claudia Knab-Vispo (Plants), Conrad Vispo (Butterflies, Dragonflies, Ground Beetles), and Mike Pewtherer (Mammals), and to get a sneek preview of the methods we will be using to learn about and document some of the biodiversity in our landscape. At the end of the workshop, we hope to form three groups of volunteers who are interested in exploring the Roeliff Jansen Park (once a month for half a day, during 2009) and special places throughout the county (once a month for half a day) with us.

You need not have any prior knowledge, just a genuine love for nature and the curiosity and eagerness to learn!

Teenagers through seniors are welcome. We hope to form multi-age, multi-skill teams so that there will be a lot of learning from each other, as well.

Attached you find a more detailed description of the initiative as we envision it. Please contact us if you are interested or if you have any questions. Please contact us also if you would love to participate but can’t make the date for the initial workshop. Feel free to spread the word!

We are looking forward to seeing you soon,

Claudia Knab-Vispo
Farmscape Ecology Program
Hawthorne Valley Farm
327 Route 21C
Ghent, NY 12075
(518) 672-7500 Ext. 254 (office)
(518) 781-0243 (home)
fep@hawthornevalleyfarm.org
http://www.hawthornevalleyfarm.org