community clubs
Get together, expand your knowledge of the natural world, meet other folks, and have a good time!
Tracking Club and Nature Book Club meet monthly, are free, and are open to all.
Tracking Club and Nature Book Club meet monthly, are free, and are open to all.
Tracking Club
Raccoon tracks found at Tracking Club
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April 24th: Movement and Gaits
Animal movements correspond with different track patterns and gaits which can be useful in both determining species ID and understanding the behavior of the track maker. This month we will be learning about different track patterns that mammals make, and what those trails might be telling us! June: Drawing to Improve Perception We will be trying something new at this Tracking Club meet up- drawing tracks to improve our perception of them! Drawing tracks can help us to focus in on the details and pick up on aspects of tracks that often go unnoticed. Join us as we explore a new medium for learning tracking! |
Join us as we explore along the Sandy River for signs of wildlife!
The floodplain at Oxbow Park hosts a diversity of wildlife. Some of the tracks and signs we've encountered there have been left by mountain lion, coyote, bear, deer, toad(!), mink, beaver, otter, and more! You never know who you might find.
The floodplain at Oxbow Park hosts a diversity of wildlife. Some of the tracks and signs we've encountered there have been left by mountain lion, coyote, bear, deer, toad(!), mink, beaver, otter, and more! You never know who you might find.
Last Sunday of every month, 9am-12pm
Where: Oxbow Park. Meet at the Floodplain, which is the first parking lot on the left after you enter the park.
Cost: Free - but $5 entrance fee to Oxbow Park per vehicle.
Where: Oxbow Park. Meet at the Floodplain, which is the first parking lot on the left after you enter the park.
Cost: Free - but $5 entrance fee to Oxbow Park per vehicle.
Tracking club is open to everyone. Whether you're an experienced tracker, completely new, or somewhere in between. Led by two Cascadia Wild Tracking Leaders, this is an informal gathering where you can practice your tracking skills and learn from each other. It is a space for people to get together, learn and share knowledge, encourage each other along our journey, and have fun.
Not only is tracking a skill you can enjoy no matter your experience level, this is also a great activity for many ages and levels of physical ability. Much of the time is spent at a casual pace as we look for tracks and sign, or spent huddled over something interesting! The terrain at Oxbow is relatively flat and is a mix of sand and grass floodplain, with a few (usually dry) channels to walk across. The shore of the river is sloped and has some river rocks in the wet sand or mud. There is a bathroom facility at the meeting area. Wear sturdy shoes if you need them and always dress for the weather.
Each month will have a different theme to inspire exploration of different aspects of tracking and to welcome different parts of our community.
Not only is tracking a skill you can enjoy no matter your experience level, this is also a great activity for many ages and levels of physical ability. Much of the time is spent at a casual pace as we look for tracks and sign, or spent huddled over something interesting! The terrain at Oxbow is relatively flat and is a mix of sand and grass floodplain, with a few (usually dry) channels to walk across. The shore of the river is sloped and has some river rocks in the wet sand or mud. There is a bathroom facility at the meeting area. Wear sturdy shoes if you need them and always dress for the weather.
Each month will have a different theme to inspire exploration of different aspects of tracking and to welcome different parts of our community.
Nature Book Club
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For our April book club we will be reading Entangled Life: How Fungi Make our Worlds, Change our Minds and Shape our Futures by Marlin Sheldrake.
There is a lifeform so strange and wondrous that it forces us to rethink how life works… Neither plant nor animal, it is found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies. It can be microscopic, yet also accounts for the largest organisms ever recorded, living for millennia and weighing tens of thousands of tonnes. Its ability to digest rock enabled the first life on land, it can survive unprotected in space, and thrives amidst nuclear radiation. In this captivating adventure, Merlin Sheldrake explores the spectacular and neglected world of fungi: endlessly surprising organisms that sustain nearly all living systems. They can solve problems without a brain, stretching traditional definitions of ‘intelligence’, and can manipulate animal behavior with devastating precision. In giving us bread, alcohol and life-saving medicines, fungi have shaped human history, and their psychedelic properties, which have influenced societies since antiquity, have recently been shown to alleviate a number of mental illnesses. The ability of fungi to digest plastic, explosives, pesticides and crude oil is being harnessed in break-through technologies, and the discovery that they connect plants in underground networks, the ‘Wood Wide Web’, is transforming the way we understand ecosystems. Yet they live their lives largely out of sight, and over ninety percent of their species remain undocumented. Entangled Life is a mind-altering journey into this hidden kingdom of life, and shows that fungi are key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel and behave. The more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them. |
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In May we will be reading Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks by Mark David Spence.
This book examines the ideal of wilderness preservation in the United States from the antebellum era to the first half of the twentieth century, showing how the early conception of the wilderness as the place where Native Americans lived (or should live) gave way to the idealization of uninhabited wilderness. It focuses on specific policies of Native American removal developed at Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Glacier national parks from the early 1870s to the 1930s.
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For June Book Club we will be reading The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet by Robert Hazen
Hailed by The New York Times for writing “with wonderful clarity about science . . . that effortlessly teaches as it zips along,” nationally bestselling author Robert M. Hazen offers a radical new approach to Earth history in this intertwined tale of the planet’s living and nonliving spheres. With an astrobiologist’s imagination, a historian’s perspective, and a naturalist’s eye, Hazen calls upon twenty-first-century discoveries that have revolutionized geology and enabled scientists to envision Earth’s many iterations in vivid detail—from the mile-high lava tides of its infancy to the early organisms responsible for more than two-thirds of the mineral varieties beneath our feet. Lucid, controversial, and on the cutting edge of its field, The Story of Earth is popular science of the highest order.
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We will not be meeting for book club in July, but feel free to get a head start on August's book: Beyond Words: What Animals Think by Carl Safina.
I wanted to know what they were experiencing, and why to us they feel so compelling, and so-close. This time I allowed myself to ask them the question that for a scientist was forbidden fruit: Who are you?
Weaving decades of field observations with exciting new discoveries about the brain, Carl Safina's landmark book offers an intimate view of animal behavior to challenge the fixed boundary between humans and nonhuman animals. In Beyond Words, readers travel to Amboseli National Park in the threatened landscape of Kenya and witness struggling elephant families work out how to survive poaching and drought, then to Yellowstone National Park to observe wolves sort out the aftermath of one pack's personal tragedy, and finally plunge into the astonishingly peaceful society of killer whales living in the crystalline waters of the Pacific Northwest. Beyond Words brings forth powerful and illuminating insight into the unique personalities of animals through extraordinary stories of animal joy, grief, jealousy, anger, and love. The similarity between human and nonhuman consciousness, self-awareness, and empathy calls us to re-evaluate how we interact with animals. Wise, passionate, and eye-opening at every turn, Beyond Words is ultimately a graceful examination of humanity's place in the world. |
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This club is a great way to keep up on your nature learning, meet new people, read new books, and participate in discussion about the ways nature writing shapes our experiences and relationship to the natural world.
New folks are always welcome to join!
Fourth Tuesday of each month, 6:00pm-7:30pm
Where: Online, contact us for the meeting link
Cost: Free
New folks are always welcome to join!
Fourth Tuesday of each month, 6:00pm-7:30pm
Where: Online, contact us for the meeting link
Cost: Free
Check the calendar for upcoming meeting dates and the books that will be discussed.
