Have some time on your hands? Get involved and make a difference!

Irving Ecotourism

Description of Project: The Ecotourism project provides nature experiences and education for the public. Most activities are located within the Campion Trails system, a greenbelt along the Elm Fork and West Fork of the Trinity River. The Campion area includes wetlands, prairie and riparian forest.  Some Ecotourism activities are Nature Encounter (guided walks), Nature Bicycling, Bioblitz, and Night Hikes. The NTMN chapter received a Community Service Award from the City of Irving for its work for the Ecotourism program.

Volunteers help with the various outreach and education programs, lead nature walks, participate in bird counts and other biological surveys and censuses. For more information, contact russolivier2@gmail.com

Blackland Prairie Raptor Center

Description of Project: A rehabilitation hospital/facility for injured raptors and education of the public about birds of prey and their role in nature within our North Texas environment. The center provides an education center open to the public and conducts dozens of live raptor teaching presentations at Dallas area high schools, fairs, nature organizations, and public events.

Volunteers help by caring for and feeding resident raptors, cleaning the facility, building cages/flyways, participating in rehab exercises, assisting in medical procedures, and conducting live educational presentations. For more information, contact russolivier2@gmail.com

BIOBLITZ Events

Description of Project: An event in which Master Naturalists, wildlife biologists, other scientists and community members work together to locate and identify as many species of flora and fauna possible of a specified area in a set range of time.

Volunteers identify and report the different species of vegetation and wildlife as they gain knowledge about the designated area. The information is then used to plan the management of the area. For more information, contact russolivier2@gmail.com

NTMN Chapter Audit Committee

The audit committee seeking several new members, preferably from the new(er) classes, to add to the committee. This is a quick and pretty easy way to log some VH early in the year. Every year the audit committee meets on a February Saturday morning at the home of the Chair, Stan Altschuler, to review a representative sample of the prior year’s books and records provided by the chapter’s treasurers and an inventory list of the chapter’s assets provided by the inventory manager, Gary Barton.  The meeting takes about 3 hours and Stan provides coffee and snacks. There is post-meeting email conferencing to prepare and approve the annual audit report which is presented for approval at the March board meeting by the committee chair. That’s it! No special accounting expertise is necessary.  For more information on this position, please contact vicepresident@ntmn.org.

Amphibian Watch Project Leader

Barbara Turner would like to hand over the leadership of our Amphibian Watch project to another Master Naturalist. This is an important Citizen Science project which is conducted from March until October on the last Friday of the month for about 90 minutes, beginning at sundown at Sunset Bay at White Rock Lake.

It’s really an amphibian “listen,” because they ID the frogs by their croaks. Barbara sends the data to TPWD for their statewide amphibian monitoring efforts.

If you might be interested, please contact Barbara for more information at 972-222-7321.