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Highland Wonders Field Trip: Mushroom Mosey, Fall Edition!

Back for a new season!

After leading a fascinating introduction to mushroom ecology, characteristics and foraging practices this spring, Elliot Phillips and Amber Kauffman are excited to come back for a second fungi-focused forest frolic, featuring the fungi of the Fall!

Curious about the location? So are we! All we know at this time is that we will be in the Okanogan Highlands. The details will be revealed by the mushrooms themselves the week of the event.

If you are interested in learning more, please send us a quick email at info@okanoganhighlands.org and we will keep you updated (via email) with all the details as the date nears.

Highland Wonders Field Trips: April-June, 2024

We are so excited to explore the Okanogan Highlands, learning about the marvels of local species and ecosystems! We hope you can join one or more of these field trips. Please RSVP to info@okanoganhighlands.org to  let us know you are coming, and we will send along ALL the details about the day.

Podcast! Eager Beavers S4:E3

…with Alexa Whipple, director of the Methow Beaver Project

Listen to Eager Beavers with Alexa Whipple
 
Our furry, toothy friends, nature’s flat-tailed engineers, the North American Beaver (Castor canadensis) is native throughout this continent, and once populated our region in great numbers. Over the last two hundred years the fur trade and the general perception that beavers are pests have decimated populations. The future is looking brighter for beavers, however, as people like Alexa Whipple and organizations like the Methow Beaver Project are making great strides in demonstrating the value of beavers for the many ways they support communities, livelihoods, and biodiversity. The life history of beavers and the ways that they change their habitat to meet their own needs also happens to contribute to water conservation, improve water quality, restore and maintain habitat for countless other species, contribute to wildfire resilience, mitigate climate change, and more. As beavers gain more positive attention for their ecological values, policy makers are looking to do their part to change the way beavers are perceived and managed on a Washington State-wide level. Have a listen!

Methow Beaver Project: https://methowbeaverproject.org/

Senate Bill 5846: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=5846&Year=2023&Initiative=false

 

This podcast is produced by Okanogan Highlands Alliance. For more information or to support OHA, visit our website: okanoganhighlands.org

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Episode Art by Diana Weddle

Podcast! Birdwatching Is For You (Who Me? Yes, You!) S4:E2

…with Alex Feinberg, birdwatcher and software engineer with Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird Program

Listen to Birdwatching Is For You with Alex Feinberg
 
This episode is inspired, in part, by the Great Backyard Bird Count, a worldwide citizen science effort organized by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Audubon Society and Birds Canada to observe and record wild birds all over the world. It doesn’t matter what level you are, everyone is welcome and encouraged to join a worldwide community of bird fans and participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count, which takes place mid-February each year. This podcast episode will help you prepare to participate or to take on birding adventures of your own any time of the year!

Over the course of the next 20 minutes, Alex Feinberg, avid birdwatcher and software programmer with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird program, shares his experiences learning to birdwatch, and how the vast and varied bird resources developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology can help you learn. By the end you will be ready to let your birding career take flight.

We hope that you are inspired to get outside, watch birds, listen for birds, and join the worldwide community of bird fans, not just for the Great Backyard Bird Count, but for a whole lifetime of birdy adventures!

For more about The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and to explore their resources, check out their website: https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home

To get involved, check out the Great Backyard Bird Count: https://www.birdcount.org/

This podcast is produced by Okanogan Highlands Alliance. For more information or to support OHA, visit our website: okanoganhighlands.org

Find the Highland Wonders Podcast:

Podcast Art by Martina Graves

Our Native Bees (and Other Pollinators) with David Jennings

 

Event Details:

  • Friday, March 29, 2024 at 6:30 pm
  • Dinner, benefitting the CCC from 5-6:15 pm $15/plate
  • Community Cultural Center of Tonasket, 411 Western Ave. Tonasket, WA
  • Presentation is Free to the Public

Event Description:

Most of our native bees are so small and fast-moving that we often don’t notice them, or if we do, we don’t recognize them as bees. Estimates are that we have upwards of 650 species of native bees here in Washington State, but only about 500 have been identified to species. Yet bees are a keystone species: without them, whole ecosystems falter. David will provide an overview of pollination, explain why native bees are vital, and share identification tips for common bumble bees. Join in a discussion on how we can meaningfully support our local pollinators.

David Jennings has an academic background in wildlife ecology and conservation from the University of Georgia and a MPH in Biostatistics from the University of Oklahoma. He is a former WA State Fish and Wildlife Commissioner. David is the current President of the Washington Native Bee Society, and a past president of the Washington Butterfly Association and the Gifford Pinchot Task Force. Currently, he also serves on Black Hills Audubon Society’s conservation committee.

If you missed this event, you can catch it on OHA’s Youtube Channel! Click here to go straight to David’s March, 2024 presentation.

Selected Slides featuring Local Bumblebees from David Jennings’ Talk, March, 2024

Questions? Send Jen an email: jen@okaonganhighlands.org

Podcast! Grasslands of the Okanogan S4:E1

…with Don Gayton, ecologist and writer

Listen to Grasslands of the Okanogan with Don Gayton

Welcome to Highland Wonders Podcast Season 4!!! We are excited to be back and kicking off the new season with Don Gayton: ecologist, writer, and native grass enthusiast. This episode is sure to push you into the next level of your natural history learning, and to inspire new questions about our native species and ecosystems. At the end, if you are thirsty for more to explore, here are some additional resources to tide you over until you can get back out into the shrub steppe or a highland meadow and see for yourself!

For more about Don Gayton, including his publications and blog, check out his website.

Zoom in and learn more about our native grasses and their distinctive plant parts in Don Gayton’s Grass Identification Primer.

Zoom out with information from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Shrub Steppe page, where you can find an overview, a virtual tour and a short film (by Conservation Northwest and WDFW) about Washington’s Shrub Steppe Habitat. 

Join a citizen science opportunity! Help to catalog the biodiversity of the Okanogan Highlands through iNaturalist, a great (and free) platform for learning that allows you to submit your photos or audio observations for identification and learning. It’s a really fun way to connect with a community of nature observers and learners of all levels, and has real value in building our understanding of the biodiversity of our area so that we can better steward our place. Once you have a username, please join our local projects to help build a repository of knowledge about the species that inhabit this special place. Here are a couple of projects that we recommend:

 Okanogan Highlands Biodiversity Project: Chesaw and Surroundings

Okanogan Highlands Biodiversity Project: Mt Bonaparte and Surroundings

This podcast is produced by Okanogan Highlands Alliance. For more information or to support OHA, visit our website: okanoganhighlands.org

Find the Highland Wonders Podcast:

Podcast Art by Martina Graves
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