Yep.  I’m going legit.  Hah!

I went to my first Certified Naturalist class today.  They’re taking place Tuesday now through June 9^th at the Effie Yeaw Nature Center in Carmichael.  I can only get there by surface streets and traffic in the late afternoon is a “B”, so it took me an hour.  (I’ll have to leave the house earlier next time.)

The first 90 minutes of the class included some introductions and then a walk through the oak forest to the American River, which included spotting deer, woodpeckers, turkeys, water fowl, a tag-teaming pair of Red-Shouldered Hawks, Titmice, wrens, and other critters, information on ant colonies, a little bit of animal tracking, seeing the Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillars (one in the process of forming its chrysalis), identifying galls and granary trees, looking nests, trying to spot cotton rabbits and jack rabbits in the tall grass, and seeking to identify some of the plants in the area.  Then there was a short break, and after that we had a presentation on what a “naturalist” is and what role the naturalist plays in educating the public, and learned a few key terms.  The classes are four hours long, but tonight’s class sure didn’t feel like four hours; it felt more like 1 or 2.  Very engaging, very educational.  I was really pleased.  I hope the rest of them are this appealing.

Here’s the video of the ducklings: https://youtu.be/Bd2o57v6xtc

Another neat thing: they had each attendee tell the rest of the class about who they were and why they were taking the course.  A lot of my classmates (all except one was over 40) were retired grade school teachers and some of them worked for the Effie Yeaw center.  When I told them about myself and that I was with Tuleyome, there was a lot of positive response; a lot of them knew what Tuleyome was and what we were doing in the Berryessa Snow Mountain region – and two of them stopped me after class to tell me they’d read my Tuleyome Tales articles in the newspapers and really enjoyed them.  So, that awesome!

I’m taking copious notes to share with the rest of the office staff, and we’re also supposed to start keeping a field journal, so I’ll need to find something that’s easy to carry and can stand being out in the “wilderness”…