Meeting October 14

Yes, there is a meeting this Thursday October 14th!
This is a very important meeting regarding the future of the club, and we'll be asking for your input on some things. Please come with that in mind!

Carrie will also be doing a program on Nature Hikes, and what to think about while taking people out on one.

Name the dragonfly?

Spotted this little dragonfly near the water on Sunday. Can you help me identify it? Confirmation from someone else would be helpful.

July 8th meeting coming up! Janice Petko

Congratulations to the June 2010 OCVNer class! Some of the old OCVNer's, Sharon Strouse and Chris Sieverdes met the new OCVNers tonight following their testing. We all enjoyed a dinner organized and put together by Janice Tipton, along with some extra dishes brought in by the old OCVNer's! It was great to meet the new class and it looks like there is a lot of talent with them. Maybe we can all help them get started finding and learning about some volunteer opportunities. I hope they will be able to come out to our meetings at The Wilderness Center on the 2nd Thursday of each month in order to learn more about the opportunities available, and meet all the great people in the club.

I'd like to thank Pat Dutton and Dee Pendlebury for sharing about their work with The Explorers during our last meeting! I've heard from those who attended that it was a good meeting and the program was interesting. Thanks again, ladies!

July 8th is the next meeting and Janice Petko, a birder and visitor to our club, will be presenting a program on bluebirds and the work she does to protect and care for them. I had the opportunity to accompany her on one of her bluebird trails last weekend and it was fantastic fun! I learned a lot about bluebird and swallow nesting behaviors. This woman is a powerhouse of knowledge and energy! I'm very sure you'll enjoy hearing and seeing her presentation as well as meeting her. Her professionalism and passion for her work is impressive.

Not only is Janice a great birder, but she is a talented photographer. She travels and makes wonderful notecards to sell at a reasonable price and the photos are phenomenal. I'm hoping she brings some with her. I've bought quite a few, and like to give them as gifts. Please join us at 7:00 pm on July 8th. We'll also have a short meeting afterwards for volunteer opportunities and discussion!

New OCVN Class

The 2010 OCVN class is underway today. Six new students are participating this year, and it looks like we'll have another great group! If you would like to help welcome this group, join us for a welcome dinner on Friday June 25th, 5pm at TWC. The chapter will be providing this meal after their test. Please let Janice Tipton know if you plan to attend the supper or can help with food preparation. Welcome class of 2010!

June 10th (7 p.m.) is our next meeting.

May's meeting presentation was brought by Marvin and Sandy Smith. As we were talking about going outside for the botany walk, the winds picked up a little, so instead of a walk, we were treated to a great "virtual" wildflower walk, from the comfort of a nice dry chair. Marvin

certainly " wowed " us with the number of plants he was able to bring to us by way of slides. The extra information he brought to our attention about the use of the plants made it even more enjoyable. He had us pick a card depicting a wild flower and when we saw it on the screen, we helped in identifying it by reading what he had written on the back of the photo which we held in our hand. The trick to learning these flowers Marvin said is "Learn them one at a time". It was a beautiful way to enjoy a dreary evening.

Next month's (June 10th) meeting will be held outside. Pat Dutton, Dee Pendlebury and others who work with the group called " The Explorers" will be bringing us some information on what they do with the young people in Fredricksburg, for our evening program. This is a great volunteer effort on their part, and I've been curious to hear more about what they do. perhaps some of you can join them as you look for volunteer opportunities! I saw their display at the OCVN conference that I thought was interesting. This will be a lively presentation and it will be held outside in the picnic pavillion near the interpretive building. Hope you can make it for that night!

Future programs will involve Bluebirds, carbon footprints and recycling, and the intricacies of Land Snails! Keep with us and you'll be well involved with Natural History!

Don't forget to sign up for the Naturalist Refresher Classes:

Each class is $10.00 and you can contact Carrie Elvey for more information at 330-359-5235.

I'm really looking forward to these classes!

• Herpetology Field Day - July 31st
• Ohio Fossils - August 21rst
• Animal Signs and Tracking- September 9th
• Birding the Killbuck Wildlife Area - October 7th.

We have a FACEBOOK area that Jean Paddock set up for us also. There we can post photos and discuss sightings that are of interest to us. Here's the link!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=116026211758632&ref=ts

Until the next meeting, we hope you all keep on exploring!

Greetings from Holmes County West!

Wally Road is beautiful in spring, and we would love to show you its natural wonders. Watch this space for an invitation - a chapter meeting will be held at the Mohican River Inn very soon!

Meanwhile, we need volunteers. Many of the pieces are in place for a brand new bluebird trail, but we need help at various levels. The plan is to have local landowners act as box monitors, but we want supervisors to make sure they're getting the work done and reporting their findings. We also will be involving scouts and 4-H groups. There will be a work day for assembling boxes and for installing them, and for educating the monitors.

So please, contact Vivian Ashcraft at 330-377-4001 or ninipapa@roadrunner.com. I also started a website, http://bluebirdtrail.webatu.com. It's still under construction, but I like it!

If you haven't been to Wally Road, or if you haven't been there for a while, you need to come visit! I'd be glad to show you around and so would Andy Miller, another OCVN, and owner of the Mohican River Inn.

May 13th Presenter... Marvin Smith.

The spring is passing so quickly! The temperatures are terrific for a spring hikes! I hope you all have been able to explore some and enjoy just being outside to "play".

I'm really looking forward to our May meeting program! If it's a non-rainy evening, Marvin Smith will take us out on a wildflower walk at TWC. If it's rainy, we'll take a virtual walk via his slides!

Please join us May 13th, and for those of you who don't want to walk far, I was down at TWC last weekend (April17th) and noticed a few things sprouting up around the building. The pond near the offices is coming to life also. It might be just a nice time to spend some time outside! There weren't that many things in bloom on the 17th, but I expect with the rains and 3-4 more weeks time, it will be even more beautiful in the woods as well as around the areas of the parking lots and prairie!

Soon we'll be spotting Lynda Price waving her butterfly net! That's one of my favorite images of summer! I know it's truly summer when I see the butterfly search on! In the following photo Lynda is sharing her love for butterflies with a visitor at TWC.

Our last meeting program was given by Carrie, and she spoke to us about skulls and what they can tell you about the animals' lives. This is what I found most interesting. That you could tell so much by the way the skull was anatomically as to what the animal eats, how it might hunt, and what it may have been struggling with health wise before it's death. There were fascinating things learned by the attendees at this meeting! She passed around skulls of Dear, coyote, bobcat, heron, turtle, rabbit, and a groundhog with severe dental problems!

A special call was given out by Gary Popotnik for us to help with garlic mustard pulls, at:

TWC May 8th

Doughty Gorge May 1

Wiles Woods May 15

So if any of you might like to get outside and do something to keep the wild things as they should be, please call Gary or write him. gary@wildernesscenter.org or at 1-877-359-5235.

On Earth Day, Bob Hopp and I headed out to TWC to do Wilderness Watchers. It was cold and windy and there weren't people just hiking about for pleasure, so we called it a short day. I recommend this for those of us that aren't great presenters but still like to share our enthusiasm with others about the natural world. I'm planning on trying it again some time soon!

Janice Tipton has volunteered to put together a post class dinner for the OCVN graduates of this year. Bob Hopp told me he won't be available to help, so I expect Janice would love to hear from any of you that have a gift in that area. You can write Janice @ jtipton212@yahoo.com or catch her at one of the coming meetings. I'm sure she'd love to have a small committee to help with this!

I know there were many other volunteer opps mentioned at the meeting. If any of you want that on this blog you'll have to write me, zorahh@sssnet.com because I can't remember all the details!

We do miss some of you that haven't been able to come to the meetings lately. We understand it's hard to do everything... but I do hope you will make it back whenever you're able to. Keep reading this blog to keep updated about the meetings and people, until you can make it back!

We'll see you all May 13th!