Highlights and Gratitudes for the Passing Year

Yes - I am still perched painfully in front of my computer working on revisions and rewrites on my environmental history dissertation. It doesn't look like I will meet my self-imposed deadline of having it all finished by the start of the New Year. The weather outside is gloomy and damp, and has been for over a week. My back aches with all the sitting and the staring, and the torment of gloom gloom gloom outside my window is making me cranky. So I decided to save my edits, close the dissertation window, and lighten my spirits by remembering the highlights of a most remarkable year in hopes that I will feel a little better for it. 

Highlight #1: Hog Island, Maine.

Thanks to a Maryland Ornithological Society scholarship I was able to attend Educator's Week at Audubon's Hog Island Camp on the Maine coast. I came away with a new flock of friends, many of whom I've connected to on FB. I came away with a high regard for the way environmental education is used by Audubon to inspire and influence adult audiences.  The learning never ends.

Life bird!

Craig and part of my group staying and hiking on Hog Island.

Highlight #2: The Great Orono Bog.

Bogging does not fit the romantic notion of exploring the vast natural and wonderous landscapes of North America, but hey, it's one of my most favorite things to do when visiting the northern states. I ran into an old friend at Orono Bog, John,  and met a new conservation friend, Jim, who founded and oversees the management of the bog. It is a jewel in the crown of the mother of all bogs. I also met Pete Tipper who is walking to twenty natural areas, parks, and reserves in Maine this year. Next year he's doing the same thing in North Carolina. It's how he is spending his well earned retirement, year by year, after dedicating 40 years to teaching botany and ecology at a mid-western university. He inspired me in so many ways I could fill a book with our one hour long conversation. I find inspirational people in bogs.

Jim Bird, Bog Boss.

John Green, fellow naturalist/birder from Pennsylvania.

Pete Tipper on his Maine pilgrimage.

Highlight #3: All Things Leopold.

How lucky am I that my boss approved my attending an amazing conference held in Baraboo, Wisconsin organized by the Aldo Leopold Foundation? Not only did I have the opportunity to sink into deep and very fun conversations with authors and conservationists whose work I have long admired and been inspired by, but I got to spend a some time with Estella Leopold, the youngest and only surviving child of The Professor. Of course I had to make a few trips out to The Shack. Leopold never gets old.

Dr. Estella Leopold

A class picture of the 2015 Leopold Education State Coordinator and Educators. (I'm in the third row, second right.)

Highlight #4: Spending an Afternoon on an Island in Maine with Ralph Stanley.

I am still processing this. Another book. Ralph Stanley, shipbuilder and Maine islander. Wow.

Ralph Stanley, a Maine State Treasure.

Highlight #5: Saying Goodbye to Antioch, almost.
My last PhD intensive happened in June. Now the slog to revise, rewrite, assemble, defend. Walk.

Highlight #6:  Growing a Network of Farm-Based Educators.

I never get tired of bringing together great groups of people who work on, teach about, and love farming. We had our first Mid-Atlantic meeting of FBE in New Jersey this fall and boy-howdy was it a great one! I look forward to working with the Doris Duke Foundation and the Duke Farms in Princeton, NJ to organize our first regional conference in 2016/2017. The way outdoor education was meant to be.

Lookout world, Farm-Based Educators in the Mid-Atlantic have arrived at a farm near you!

Highlight #7: Buying a Plane Ticket to Spain.

I've wanted to hike the Camino de Santiago for a long time. I've been thinking about it for years and years and decided that 2016 would be the year I will do it. I'm no stranger to long distance hiking, but I've never been to Europe and I can't think of a better graduation present to myself.  Ticket in hand, I'll be leaving for Madrid on May 17. I have been fascinated by the idea of pilgrimage for as long as I have known about The Camino. Thinking about journeying through complex landscapes as a way that allows the land to reveal itself to you is a theme I would like to continue to develop in my writing.  Ultreya!

Scallop shell is the symbol of the Pilgrim of Santiago.

Highlight #8: Birding with the Grands

I have five grandkids and with my daughter and son-in-law's blessing, have made it my grandmotherly duty to get everyone of them involved in birding, hiking, climbing, paddling. This year's adventures included a whole day birding expedition to Bombay Hook NWR with Mairin (7) and taking Kenzey (10) on her first official bird count at Swan Harbor. I feel pretty strongly about giving children an outdoor education and providing them with the foundations of life-long interests in nature and landscapes. Kenzey wants to hike the Camino with me which makes me happy beyond words, but she'll have to wait a few years so she grows a little more into the job of carrying her own backpack. I'm currently considering ways I can take the grands with me virtually while hiking the Camino Frances this May. Get Out!

Kenzey's first Winter Count!

Thanksgiving Day birding with Mairin at Bombay Hook NWR.

I think that's the short list of highlights, though I try everyday to find a gem of inspiration so I could actually list 365 highlights. But I do want to say that I am especially grateful for having finally come to the finish of a seven year-long adventure earning my PhD. Environmental history suits me well and I look forward to working on several book projects in 2016 - yes, more writing, edits, revisions, rewrites. 

Where I've spent the last seven years.

I must sincerely thank my advisor, Dr. Alesia Maltz this year for her steady guidance along the way.  Wherever the opportunities for using this PhD may take me, I will always be thankful for such great support from my committee and from all the people who helped me with research.  And  cannot finish out this year without thanking my friends for being there when I had any number of doctoral meltdowns. There were a few of those!

Penny knows how to handle my PhD meltdowns with a kayak trip and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Well, back to the chapter revisions. I do feel better! It's dark outside so I don't have to look at the gloom! Onward - into the New Year with what I hope is the end of Chapter 5 and a chance for a First Day hike, no matter how short or how close by. Happy 2016!

Looking ahead to 2016 - Bien Camino!

The Road

Here is the road: the light
comes and goes then returns again.
Be gentle with your fellow travelers
as they move through the world of stone and stars
whirling with you yet every one alone.
The road waits.
Do not ask questions but when it invites you
to dance at daybreak, say yes.
Each step is the journey; a single note the song.

-Arlene Gay Levine

ME: July 20-25 Trip Log: Part 2 - Working In Conservation

Lobster Boat with stern sail.

Each morning while attending Audubon's Hog Island Educator's Camp Week (to include the following week solo camping in Acadia National Park), I awoke to the sound of lobster boats leaving port around 0430. The signature thrumming from their powerful inboard engines made me imagine crews dressed in slickers and warm hoodies sipping hot coffee while they cut through the chilly, thick morning fog. 

Traditional Greenland-style skin-on-frame kayak (qajaq).

On a hike across Hog Island we came to an open beach where we rested and explored. A traditional Greenland-styled qajaq (kayak) glided by. Almost of all of my team had no idea what they were looking at so I explained how the boat was designed as an extension of the Inuit hunter - part of his body - responsive, nimble, flexible yet strong. How integral this boat design was to a thousand year tradition of seal and whale hunting in the High Arctic! The great fishing fleets of Europe arrived in the mid-1500s and indigenous systems of hunting collapsed. With a rapid expansion of fishing technology over the following centuries the whale, seal, and fish stocks collapsed as well. Greed became an extension of a new economic order. 

Surveying moths at night.

Western North Atlantic societies may have learned many environmental lessons the hard way by experiencing near total losses of major stocks of fish, marine mammals, northern forests, and valuable soils, but clearly there are new lessons to be learned layered over the historic tales of the rise of industrial technology. At dinner one evening we discussed some of those lessons, but an important point made too: that we never stop learning from historic case studies. It isn't a simple equation of problem + solution = problem solved. With each new 'solution' there comes a whole suite of new challenges: human population, climate change, technological advance, and a false sense of conservation progress.

A volunteer seabird monitor on Eastern Egg Rock.

Many of the participants in this week's Audubon Educator's Camp were experiencing a natural world that seemed to push at their personal comfort zone. A long hike through the humid coastal woods was not always spectacular scenery or a nicely groomed path. It was root-filled and required careful navigation. At one point the navigation broke down completely and we became fairly lost. Some people grumbled, others took it as a new adventure in wayfinding. Meanwhile on the mainland, a group of  bog explorers fell through a floating mat of sphagnum moss only to stand chest high in chilly tannin-stained water. Laughter and squeals commenced as they worked together to figure out how to extricate themselves from the pond without further damaging the floating mat. What a metaphor-filled day!

Harbor seals hauled out on a favorite sunning rock.

When I speak with young folks and college students interested in conservation careers, I'm sure to explain that this work does not always fit the romantic notions of saving the whales or preserving magnificent landscapes. Sometimes conservation looks like the lobstermen (in Maine) or crabbers ( in Maryland) hauling in their traps and throwing back the undersized catch. Sometimes there is grumbling, but most all know that to take everything is to rob not only the ecosystem of its valuable members but to rob the future of watermen. Here in the Mid-Atlantic we've only just begun to explore the case studies of collapse, recovery, and adaptation to changing environments and circumstances, but some regional departments of environmental sciences and studies are looking more closely at the history and future of conservation careers as shaped by our past experiences. 

Bombus terricola! In abundance!

To hear the lobster fleet go out every morning one could easily be fooled into thinking the lobster industry is thriving, and yes, this year it has been okay say some. But in 2012 lobster prices tanked, causing chaos and despair in the Northeast seafood market. The Maine Lobstermen's Union formed to give fishermen a political and economic voice as well as a common conservation platform. They are as dependent upon multiple economic drivers, regional and global markets, and resource policies as they are upon the sea itself. "We're a new generation of fishermen," said one young lobster-women I met that week, "Most of us understand ecological principles - we've had some science education - some of us have advanced degrees. So why not make conservation priorities important to the union as well? Without them I can't my daughters or granddaughters that the opportunity to do what I've done will even be there."  Today a person working in conservation can wear many hats.

Banding a black-capped chickadee.

One of our  Hog Island instructors  reinforced the idea of "working in conservation" as compared to "working for conservation" - a distinction that is important today. For those who do not engage directly in conservation issues day-to-day, the idea of what a conservation worker is might not fit the old 20th century stereotypes. We discussed that although much as been accomplished in the last century, we are still using 20th century project-oriented ideas and that a much more radical and adaptive suite of practices needs to replace them. Conservation and livelihood must function together for the long haul and the idea of project-based strategies is now extending across decades and generations. Follow the lobster-woman's lead, I thought, even if her boat is not sparkling with high tech equipment and might be in need of new paint.

Franklin Island Light.

After listening to Dr. Steven Kress talk about how his own ideas of seabird restoration changed from species recovery (project-based) to ecosystem restoration (generational) at an evening presentation in the Fish House I thought about the implications of dedicated long-term human guardianship. More importantly I thought about those pivot points of experience that turned ideas on their heads. The ah-ha moments one year may well be the old news the next, but in conservation work we are constantly faced with large and small points where new ways of approaching old problems are available.

Atlantic Puffin.

But it takes even more. Most people know and accept that worldwide terrestrial, marine, and atmospheric crisis are the result of two hundred plus years of heavy industrial activity. Despite what the keepers of the world's major religions claim, the dominate religion of the industrialized world is the worship of the God of Growth. "More and more and more still," is the mantra of a modern society enthralled with its own hypermaterialism. One only need to see a tidal marsh littered with plastic debris or stroll a beach where garbage is interwoven into the wrack -or worse still the plastic-filled carcass of a seabird.  The idea that eggs, feathers, and bird meat were consumer goods so popular that entire species were put at risk, places so much of the responsibility on the consumer themselves. Now it's not the direct poaching of these animals but the indirect 'fallout' of the consumer waste stream that endangers entire ecosystems. We learn from this history and the lessons help redefine the idea of what conservation work looks like.

Atlantic Puffin mates.

The light keeper on Franklin Island during the late 1800s and early 1900s stood guard over his island's tern and puffin colony to protect them from greedy egg and feather hunters. His main job was to keep oil in the light, to mark the island at night and in fog to warn ships away. He wasn't paid to guard birds. But he knew that serious poaching occurring there and throughout the hundreds of nesting colonies on Maine's numerous 'egg rocks' endangered the birds and the ecosystem to which the birds belonged.

"Our work seemed done, but had only just begun."

Seabird eggs had become quite the society delicacy in Boston and New York and high society was willing to pay what it cost to get them. Much money could be made selling the eggs, and even more money could be made serving them! But at least on Franklin Island, poachers had more to contend with - often facing down an angry light keeper with a shotgun. The lighthouse keeper was not paid to protect the birds. His job was to warn ships off the shoals. But he and is family are known today for the dedication they demonstrated as compassionate conservationists as well as protectors of life and property on the sea. 

Common tern bringing food to chick.

Conservation work looks nothing like it did a hundred years ago,or even last year. But the light keeper who worked on Franklin Island did not make his biggest contribution as a light keeper - he is known today among all light keepers along the Maine coast as the one who saved colonies of terns and guillemots and puffins. He was part of a generation of people who cared enough about birds that they changed the minds of consumers in Boston and New York and collapsed an economic driver the chain of supply and demand through legislation. And he was also a person who saw his work extended beyond the duty of light keeper.

Yellow-rumped Warbler bathing in freshwater pool.

While we explored Harbor Island, our team observed a flurry of small birds visiting a tiny pool of rainwater. Here we were on an island surrounded by a vast salty sea, and this dinner-plate sized pool of water was where many species of sparrows, warblers, and finches had gathered in a riot of color and activity. I turned and saw my team all looking at the birds, as varied as the birds themselves in profession, background, experience, and ecological knowledge - and all - including the birds - were the image of conservation work in the 21st century.

Dories.

The biggest take-away from my experience on Hog Island was this: Conservation is not what is once was but we need to keep learning from our conservation history. Conservation work does not look like it did just ten years ago!  Project-based environmental education has its place but we must prepare students for multi-faceted jobs in conservation from environmental justice to landscape restoration to economic-ecosystem dependencies to even the kinds of college courses and job training they may need.

Notes: 

See the August 2015 issue of The Working Waterfront (Vol. 28, No. 6: 9) for an explanation and history of the Maine Lobstermen's Union, its history and its future. http://www.islandinstitute.org/working-waterfront

The young lobster-woman I spoke to gave credit to a conservation worker program she was involved with during her college years at UMaine. I was interested to see agriculture, forestry, and conservation combined under this one agency - now that's integrated conservation!
 http://www.maine.gov/dacf/parks/get_involved/conservation_corps/

ME: July 20 - 25 Trip Log: Part I - Hog Island Audubon Camp and the Outdoor Teaching Tradition

In the tradition of the Maine "Great Camps", Audubon's Hog Island continues to inspire and drive environmental and natural resources education for teachers from all over the world. I finally had my chance to join a summer session - one of my life-long dreams - certainly as a naturalist and natural history educator, but also as a conservation historian. This great camp experience did not disappoint and made me love all the more the impressive tradition of teaching that came from the nature study era of the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Pog, a treasured family moose, travels with me to Hog Island. Scott gives him a lift!

I have to state up front - I am a lover all things north in natural history, so you know I was as giddy as a little kid to step on to the Snowgoose, the big charter boat that ferries campers and guests to the camp and out to the bird islands of Muscongus Bay. My love for pelagic birding and riding aboard big boats is hard to hide and I always take the 'spotters stance' with binoculars in hand no matter how short or long the ride is. It was a short hop to the island but I saw black guillemot ('gillies'), common loon, double crested cormorant, and common eider right off! Yes - it feels like home before ever stepping off the Snowgoose!

Black Guillemot chick losing her down for adult jet black plumage

I tried to maintain a conservation historian's eye-view of the experience from the moment I walked up the dock ramp past the great shingled teaching lab and staff housing building The Queen Mary, to the gathering commons at The Bridge. How many great teachers and renowned birders have walked up the plank path to The Bridge? Rachel Carson, Roger Tory Peterson, Peter Dunn, Allen Cruickshank, and just a week ago, Scott Weidensaul (conservation author and founder of Project SNOWstorm). I thought about how many incredible naturalists and writers who've walked up that ramp are/were from Pennsylvania. I was right proud!

Hog Island, Maine.

Before I knew it, over 60 people had gathered on the island and were setting up their rooms with new roomies and instant friends. I will say something about the Great Camp tradition - you cannot help but make instant friends when abiding by dearly-held rules for family style meals and changing tables at every gathering (though I did try to position myself close to the windows at two particular tables whenever possible - I cannot stop birding...). My roomate Jen from Norfolk, Virginia, and I instantly hit it off and by the end of the week my face hurt from laughing so much!

Field sessions are an important part of learning the science of natural history.

 

Educators from all over the nation were split into four working cohorts to learn the natural history of the island and we were soon familiar with the grand old plank-built hall The Fish House where much information was shared, songs were sung, and deep thinking was thought about. I enjoyed sharing my PhD work in conservation history with many teachers, and two teachers in particular, Deb and Frankie, really were drawn to socio-ecological complex systems analysis and Buzz Hollings' infamous Figure Eight. A fellow PhD student Fanny and I talked up our field work incessantly and became each cheerleaders for the other as we work this year to finish our programs. She's doing some amazing work with finch song in Central Park, New York, bringing her love of music and music history to ornithology - a true transdisciplinarian.

Natural history illustration is a critical part of how we collect and understand ecological systems. Sherry York, instructor.

Although the Hog Island experience is now often associated with heading out on the Snowgoose to see seals and puffins, the tradition of the Audubon naturalists camp for teachers often goes undetected by those unfamiliar with the long history of nature and science education through the Audubon Society. In the late 1800s the Nature Study Movement arose in response to a growing interest conservation efforts and the realization that more people were city dwellers than from the country - a trend that has continued as America's demographic is certainly more urban/suburban than rural. Progressive educators and conservationists  Cornell's Anna Botsford Comstock and Liberty Hyde Bailey, and the American Museum of Natural History's Louis Agassiz and Wilbur Jackson launched a series of summer camps for teachers in 1895 with the hope that inspired teachers would bring nature study to their students. The idea  borrowed the Great Camp style of communal living and combined it with field sessions for natural history, science education, and conservation education - a recipe that continues to serve educator's camps very well all across the nation each summer. 

Naturalist and Keystone College (PA) professor Dr. Jerry Skinner

I've been teaching natural history for a long time, especially that of the northern woods, bogs, and coasts, and I was impressed with the suite of teachers we had for this session. Tradition is a big deal at Hog Island, and though most of the visiting teachers to Educator's Camp were unaware, I was totally tuned in to how our instructors utilized the hands-on and experiential approaches to outdoor education which were critical to the success of nature study movement under Comstock, Bailey, Agassiz, and Jackson.

Craig Newburger, excellent field educator and long-time Hog Island instructor teaches at Germantown School, PA.

The legacy of early nature educators who taught experiential methods to thousands classroom teachers who, in turn brought nature study back to their own students, influenced and inspired many of our most revered conservationists of mid-century including Rachel Carson, Olaus Murie, Aldo Leopold, and Roger Tory Peterson - among hundreds of other well-known names in the natural sciences. I wondered how many teens and educators who attend the summer sessions out here have gone on to be scientists in conservation work? 

A fellow natural resources educator popping out of Port Hole - our shingle sided great camp lodge for the week.

The 330 acre island off the shores of Bremen , Maine, was gifted to the Audubon Society in 1936 by Millicent Todd Bingham, who inherited the island from her mother, Mabel Loomis Todd, writer, editor, and biographer to Emily Dickinson. Since then the Audubon Society has maintained the island for its historic great camp charm and function with all emphasis on bird conservation and environmental education. The buildings are historic and the original camp of the Todds, including Mabel's writing cabin, still stand on the island. Artists and writers-in-residence can apply to stay in the Bingham camp. This year, one of my instructors, Sherry York from Colorado, will be spending a blissful month at the Bingham cottage to work on her printmaking.

Juanita and Ruth - carrying on the Great Camp tradition in important ways.

Critical to this effort has been the work of volunteers, especially with the backing of Friends of Hog Island (FOHI) and literally hundreds of people who donate their time and money to keeping the spirit of this Audubon camp alive and well. You can't help but feel like family as FOHI volunteers serve wonderful meals, attend to the workings on the lodges, and walk along with you on a late afternoon bird hike. I revived a little of the great camp spirit myself when I decided to make my Project Puffin (2015) book my 'autograph book.' I asked Ruth Woodall and Juanita Roushdy to be the first signers, though Ruth was so busy in the registrar's office I had to wait till supper to track her down! I had Juanita right at the check-out in the camp bookstore as I was buying the book, so she was naturally the first. (She got a little teary-eyed!)

My new hiking buddy Pachell - we can't wait to meet up in the NJ Pine Barrens for some day hikes.

Here's a nice video (featuring several of our instructors I was unable to capture in my own pics) that gives a great introduction to the experience at Hog Island:

I'll follow up with a few more posts about the actual conservation work and history of the Muscongus Bay region, but for now I wanted to get the education post in first. The instructors were excellent and the content an context of the camp truly was life changing for many of the teachers who came from everywhere. Great emphasis was placed on teacher diversity and I applaud the Audubon Society for sending so many teachers of color to this camp. We need to work harder to include the voices and experiences of ALL environmental educators and their students and I am impressed with Audubon's efforts to make the Hog Island Educators Week available to them.

A proper Eastern Egg Rock send-off from our cohort ashore Hog Island.

Before I close out this post I want to thank the Maryland Ornithological Society, and in particular my friend Dr. Dennis Kirkwood (MOS) for sponsoring my trip and my organization the Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation (MAEF) for allowing me the time to attend. Though I have many stops along the way as I continue my northern summer naturalist's expedition, this was a most excellent way to come home to New England!

More posts to follow for this week on bird conservation and the Atlantic coastal environment, but in the meantime check out the sites below.

Notes:

Friends of Hog Island - this should be your first stop! Support FOHI!

http://fohi.org/

Scott Weidensaul, author and founder of Project SNOWstorm - http://www.scottweidensaul.com

Instructor bios at Hog Island for this year can be seen here:

http://hogisland.audubon.org/instructors-and-guest-speakers

Hog Island Audubon Camp main site:

http://hogisland.audubon.org/