Alex Palmer's Natural History Notes and Thoughts

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It has been a long and cold winter, and usually after work I head straight home for a nice hot shower. Finally though, the days are starting to get longer and at least a little warmer.  So, the other day I took a badly needed break from all of the chaos at work and went for a stroll along the Anacostia River.  As I walked the pathway that was elevated on a man made levee, I thought about how the river used to be, and I realized that, Never again will the river abound with the diversity of large game fish that it once had. Never again will a wolf howl at a cliff along the Fall Line. Never again will clear and clean water wind past old growth forest. Never again will giant American Chestnuts ( Castanea dentata ) line the banks of the river. Never again will a large cloud of Passenger Pigeons ( Ectopistes migratorius ) darken the daytime sky over the river. Never again will an ivory-billed woodpecker ( Campephilus principalis ) soar across the coastal plain. Never again will

On March 12-14, I attended the spring workshop for the National Association for Interpretation's Mid Atlantic region .  The National Association for Interpretation (NAI) is the professional society for natural and cultural resource interpreters such as park rangers, naturalists, nature center managers, historical interpreters, and others.  The regional workshop for the Mid-Atlantic states was held at the beautiful Westmoreland State Park on a bluff overlooking the tidal Potomac River  (see Figure 1).  This blog post will outline my notes from the various workshop sessions that I attended.  Those include: Weeds, Woodslore, and Wildwooods Wisdom Interpreting Cultural Resource Issues using a facilitated dialogue as a Technique (notes are on a separate document) Native Plants for Survival Visitor Experience Planning My hope is that I can take home what I've learned from these interpretation professionals and apply it in my future places of employment.   ~ Figure