Coastal Master Naturalists...

Category: Volunteer

Volunteers needed! Longleaf Planting day at Lisa Matthews Memorial Bay; Tuesday, March 19th

Debbie SeabrookField Trips, Updates, Volunteer
Volunteers needed! Longleaf Planting day at Lisa Matthews Memorial Bay; Tuesday, March 19th

Volunteers Needed in Bamberg County (for information about this location click here)
Due to a generous donation, SCNPS has 1000 longleaf seedlings to plant at Lisa Matthews Memorial Bay. They will be having a volunteer planting day on Tuesday, March 19th starting at 10:30 am. If you are interested, contact Sudie Thomas at sudie.thomas@sc.usda.gov to register for directions.

News from SC Native Plant Society

Debbie SeabrookEvents, Training, Updates, Volunteer

Spring Native Plant Sale!

Saturday, March 16, 9 am – 12 noon
(SCNPS Members can start shopping at 8:30; volunteers can shop at 8:15.)
Charles Towne Landing parking lot, 1500 Old Towne Road, Charleston 29407

We have a great selection of native plants with many hard-to-find species — colorful perennials, shrubs, trees, grasses, ferns and edibles.  A plant list is available on the SCNPS website: https://scnps.org/lowcountry-spring-2019-plant-sale-list
Cash, check, or credit card accepted. Shoppers are encouraged to bring their own carts or wagons to facilitate movement of plants; box donations are also encouraged!
Admission to the plant sale is free. If you wish to explore Charles Towne Landing State Historic Site, please pay admission in the Visitor Center.
For more information, or to volunteer, contact Eddie Bernard (edlbernard@aol.com or 843-270-1112)

Lecture: The Southeastern Grasslands Initiative: A New Course for Conservation in the 21st Century
Tuesday, March 19, 6:30 pm, Biology Auditorium, 101 Duckett Hall, The Citadel
Dr. Dwayne Estes, Southeastern Grasslands Initiative
Grassland loss is the single greatest conservation issue currently facing eastern North American biodiversity. Southern grasslands are nearly extinct and the species that depend on them are fading fast. The Southeastern Grasslands Initiative (SGI) is a collaboration of leaders in international biodiversity conservation led by the Austin Peay State University Center of Excellence for Field Biology, in partnership with the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, the North Carolina Botanical Garden, and Roundstone Native Seed. SGI seeks to integrate research, consultation, education, and grants to create innovative solutions to address the complex issues facing Southeastern grasslands.

Fire Festival – Sewee Outpost

Debbie SeabrookEvents, Training, Updates, Volunteer
Attend or Volunteer!

On Saturday, March 23rd, you’re invited to bring the family to the Awendaw Green and Sewee Outpost for a free event showcasing how controlled burns are making our communities safer and restoring native forests.  For more information about attending click here.
The Nature Conservancy and other groups are once again having the Fire Festival, this time at an area around the Sewee Outpost. If you would like to volunteer to help direct traffic, welcome attendees, and help count attendee numbers, please email, Ed Siggelko, The Nature Conservancy, SC Chapter, State Volunteer Coordinator, at ed.siggelko@tnc.org.

March 5, 2019 Volunteer Hours!

Debbie SeabrookUpdates, Volunteer

Kiawah Litter sweep 030519

Click above to open poster

Our own Pam Wilson, CMNA Board member and Fall 2017 graduate, supplied this opportunity for you to get some volunteer hours! On March 5, 2019 from 10:00-12:00 participate in a litter sweep on Kiawah Island. Meet at Mingo Point; refreshments (bring your own cup or mug!) and collection supplies will be provided. For more information and to register, contact the Plastic Initiative Committee of Kiawah (PICK) at kiawahlittersweep@gmail.com

 

CMNA Litter Sweep #2

Debbie SeabrookUpdates, Volunteer

CMNA’s own Linda Rowe is organizing a volunteer opportunity! Each month we will spend an hour or two cleaning up the lowcountry and meeting fellow master naturalists.

Save the date: Tuesday, Feb 26 at 10 am-Noon as the next CMNA clean up.

Recent graduate, Jack Burg, suggested a great clean-up site near the Limehouse Bridge, and the Sign-up Genius invitation will be sent out soon. As a heads-up, this site is a bit more remote and will involve about a 0.25-mile walk on gravel from the parking area. Additionally, there is a lot of prickly vegetation along the steeply-sloping banks of the marsh, so I highly recommend pants and rubber boots. Here are some photos so you get an idea of how it all looks. And feel free to bring an adventurous friend or two, all are welcome.
Hope to see you soon.

Dolphin Count 2019

Debbie SeabrookNewsletters, Updates, Volunteer
Save the date, April 27, 2019,  for this year’s Dolphin Count! Lowcountry Marine Mammal Network’s 2nd annual citizen scientist event, Dolphin Count, will bring education and science together for a fun, all ages, interactive event to raise awareness about Charleston’s resident population of bottlenose dolphins. Last year we hosted over 400 volunteer participants, 35 lead volunteers and recorded 135 dolphin sightings in just 3 hours!

On April 27th, Dolphin Count will bring together marine mammal experts, enthusiastic volunteers and interested community members to:
LEARN more about Charleston’s true “locals”, their behaviors, and home ranges.
RAISE awareness about ways our community can view dolphins responsibly.
ENGAGE the community on the threats these animals face and ways each of us can help.
COLLECT valuable data using citizen scientists.
ANSWER questions and teach the next generation of marine stewards.
ENCOURAGE each participant to take action for more local protections such as plastic bans, protecting Capt Sams Inlet and fighting seismic drilling.

This will be an opportunity to volunteer and to learn about our dolphins. For more information go to lmmn website.

Volunteers needed for winter shorebird surveys!

Debbie SeabrookEvents, Updates, Volunteer

Audubon South Carolina is helping with a research project involving shorebirds and human disturbance on the beach. The research is led by the Virginia Tech Shorebird Program. We are in the final stage of conducting surveys through this winter and need more volunteers with shorebird ID skills to help out! If you are interested in participating, please email Nolan Schillerstrom, Audubon’s Coastal Program Coordinator, at nschillerstrom@audubon.org  and he will send you a quick questionnaire to place you on a survey. Surveys will be conducted at Folly Beach Lighthouse Inlet Heritage Preserve and Sullivan’s Island and consist of spotting and recording sightings of Red Knot, Wilson’s Plover, Piping Plover, American Oystercatcher, and Semipalmated Sandpiper as well as counting disturbances such as dogs (on and off leash), people (moving and stationary), boats, and aircraft. Feel free to call 843.459.BIRD (2473) with questions.

Volunteers needed for Christmas Bird Counts!

Debbie SeabrookVolunteer

The Christmas Bird Count is a long-standing program of the National Audubon Society, with over 100 years of citizen science involvement. It is an early-winter bird census, where thousands of volunteers across the US, Canada and many countries in the Western Hemisphere, go out over a 24 hour period on one calendar day to count birds. The 119th Christmas Bird Count will be conducted this year from Friday, December 14, 2018 through Saturday, January 5, 2019. Since the Christmas Bird count began over a century ago, it has relied on the dedication and commitment of volunteers like you! There are several counts that take place in the area….

https://www.audubon.org/conservation/science/christmas-bird-count for more information and more count sites across South Carolina to consider.

The Nature Conservancy – Ongoing Volunteer Opportunity

Debbie SeabrookUpdates, Volunteer

For anyone who enjoys working outdoors with plants and landscaping, The Nature Conservancy could use a few people to help us with some maintenance at the Driftwood Plantation property near Awendaw, SC.  For those of you not familiar with this tract of land, it looks out over the marshes towards Bull Island and is a beautiful setting. TNC could use help with shrub trimming, weed and vine pulling, fertilizing, and other landscape and maintenance activities.  This would be something that would be ongoing, not necessarily every week, but at some regular time frame so the house and outbuildings are neat looking.

Anyone interested please let Ed Siggelko (State Volunteer Coordinator, The Nature Conservancy, SC Chapter) know and he’ll set up an initial meeting at the property to cover the work to be done and tools they’ll have available versus what they may need to have you bring along. Some of the potential dates to meet one of their staff out there to review the work to be done are 9/28, 10/3 or 10/5.

His email address is ed.siggelko@tnc.org.

Thanks in advance for your help!