I Relatively Regularly hold talks, and lead nature walks or science-minded activities.

2023

Discover Mothing!

Friday, May 19, 8:15-10:00 PM, Anoka County Regional Parks, Coon Rapids Dam

Mothing! Discover moths and other nocturnal invertebrates that are drawn to a UV light. Mothing is a great way to discover the incredible diversity of nature (there are more than 12,000 species of moths in North America), spend some time outside, and relax. I’ll have a few moth sheets already set up, and with some luck, we’ll have some visitors! I’ll endeavor to tentatively ID what we find, but if I don’t know on the spot, I’ll dig into my field guides. All finds will be logged to iNaturalist as well.

Discover iNaturalist
Saturday, May 27, 12-1:30 PM, Anoka County Regional Parks, Coon Rapids Dam

iNaturalist is a Community Science App produced by the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society. This free app is a great way to track your floral, faunal, and fungal finds. Its machine-learning-based image-recognition program is often useful enough to help narrow down an identification. Best of all, the fellow users are often friendly, and there are a good number of experts (in all sorts of taxa) on the site. In this class, we’ll download the app, make some practice observations, customize our settings for privacy, learn how to use iNaturalist via a browser, and then we’ll head outside for an informal bioblitz: we’ll make as many observations as we can, with a goal of finding as much diversity as possible.

Mothing!
August 18 and August 19th, Cedar Creek Ecosystem Reserve; Times TBD

Note from Brett: Run by the University of Minnesota, this is one of the most-studied spots in the country (esp. for bugs!) so I’m really, really excited to see what shows up!

Mothing! Discover moths and other nocturnal invertebrates that are drawn to a UV light. Mothing is a great way to discover the incredible diversity of nature (there are more than 12,000 species of moths in North America, compared to just 800 butterfly species), so spend some time outside, and relax. I’ll have a few moth sheets set up, and with some luck, we’ll have some visitors! I’ll endeavor to tentatively ID what we find, but hopefully we get some fun surprises. I may not know on the spot what you find, but I can promise to find out! All finds will be logged to iNaturalist, a community science site, as well.

Open House, Cedar Creek Ecosystem Reserve
September 23!

I’ll be at this event, and I’ll be baiting trees and have a sheet up, and I’ll generally try to encourage folks to discover MOTHS!

Previous Events

2022

Naturalist Explorations: Tardigrades, Water Bears, and Moss Piglets
Coon Rapids Dam Regional Park

Wilderness Wednesdays
Anoka Nature Preserve

Naturalist Explorations: Invertebrate and Insect Bioblitz
Bunker Hills Regional Park

Naturalist Explorations: Butterfly and Bee Bonanza (canceled due to weather)
Bunker Hills Regional Park

Naturalist Explorations: Attracting and Photographing Moths
Bunker Hills Regional Park

Naturalist Explorations: Agates and Agate Lookalikes
Bunker Hills Regional Park

Naturalist Explorations: Waking Up from Winter
Coon Rapids Dam Regional Park