Saturday, September 23, 2023, is National Public Lands Day. As part of commemorating this day, Friends of Georgia State Parks and Historic Sites (Friends) hosts Your State Parks Day, a day when volunteers arrive at Parks throughout the state to participate in park projects and give back to the places that offer us a wonderful setting in which to enjoy nature. Friends is a Conservation Partner with GNPA and would love to have a photographer on hand at each park to record the efforts of the volunteers.
This year, Friends are launching a state-wide project to help park guests and volunteers learn about birds, bats, and bees, and the crucial role these and other pollinators provide in our day-to-day world. Projects will include trail clean up, installing bat boxes, beautifying areas around park offices and entrances, sprucing up or planting pollinator gardens, and a variety of other tasks depending on individual Park needs.
Photo Credit: Lisa Westberry
Times may vary from park to park, but most participate from 9 AM to 2 PM. No problem if you have an afternoon commitment and need to leave a bit early. At some parks drinks and lunch will be provided and work usually stops between 12 and 1 when everyone gathers to eat. Entry into the Parks will be free for anyone volunteering and all volunteers will receive a free t-shirt.
Friends is asking for GNPA photographers to take photos of the volunteers at work. Photos will be used on social media, in Friends publications and mailings, and may be archived to promote Your State Parks Day in future years. Our partners at Friends provide full photo credit to both the photographer and to GNPA whenever an image is used.
Photo Credit: Lisa Westberry
GNPA members are mostly nature photographers, not event or portrait photographers. However, Your State Parks Day is an easy event to shoot. Volunteers are glad to be there and love being photographed while they work. No special equipment is needed, just a camera. If you’re not there, someone will be taking photos with a cell phone – great for social media, but not so great for print purposes. Photographing this event is much like taking candid photos of your own family, including the group shots where someone is invariably looking in the wrong direction!
Photo Credit: Lisa Westberry
It’s a no-stress event. Interested?? Please email Lisa Westberry at cons_dnr@gnpa.org to get more information and/or sign up. She can provide more details on how to shoot the event, which park is near you, answer any questions, etc. Mark September 23 on your calendar and bring your camera to a state park for a fun morning!
Have you heard the buzz? On August 18th and 19th, citizens of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina residents will be venturing out to count all of the pollinators that we can find for the 2023 Great Southeast Pollinator Census! The census is a citizen science research project created by the University of Georgia that launched in 2019 inviting all Georgians to come together for two days to document pollinator populations. It further encourages everyone to create sustainable pollinator habitats and to learn about the many types of pollinators throughout the year. This project is designed for everyone to participate and make a difference for pollinator conservation! Watch the video to learn more about how to join the count by clicking here. The program also offers a no-cost STEM program for educators, with teaching resources available through the program website.
Buzzing with excitement, the citizens of South Carolina joined in 2022, and North Carolina citizens will be joining the Great Southeast Pollinator Census for the 2023 count, expanding the reach of the pioneering project in the Southeast!
It may sound un-bee-lievable, but did you know bees and butterflies aren’t the only pollinators out there. Learn more about all of the different types of pollinators, catch all the buzz about this year’s census and…
Join the count and share your photos!
Here’s how: Visit the official website at www.gsepc.org where you can:
Join and share your pollinator photos during the count on Georgia Pollinator Census Facebook page and on instagram @GaPollinators. “Bee” sure to follow both social media pages!
REMEMBER: Please know that the most important part of the project is YOU. YOU can make a difference! YOU promote the project, YOU count the insects, and YOU ensure that the data YOU collected is uploaded to the website. This project only works because of YOU.
One of the most amazing conservation events in our community happens every year and the GNPA is a part of it. The event is called Sweep the Hooch and it will be happening on March 25th of 2023 in a large variety of venues all along the Chattahoochee River and in other locations in the vicinity of the Chattahoochee. Last year approximately 2,300 volunteers collected 60 tons of garbage across the Chattahoochee. GNPA has supported this event for 6 years now providing volunteers who donate their time and the use of their photographs to document and promote the event. Photographers are needed to capture pictures in as many venues as possible. These images help tell the story of this wonderful event and generate community support which is vital to its success. This is a voluntary opportunity, our time is volunteer and the photos are donated for the use of publicizing this and future Sweep the Hooch events. We receive a T-shirt and the knowledge that we part of a very important volunteer effort. Please email Tom Wilson at trwbsa@bellsouth.net if you would like to volunteer as a photographer for the 2023 Sweep the Hooch event. You must be a dues paying member of GNPA to volunteer and while you do not need to be registered as one of our Conservation Photographer Team, you are certainly welcomed to join if you would like to. This can also be done by contacting Tom Wilson by the above email address.
Save the date – February 17-20, 2023, is the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC), a citizen science project sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, National Audubon Society, and Birds Canada.
Each February, for four days, the birdwatching world counts birds and reports those counts.
These observations help scientists better understand global bird populations before one of their
annual migrations.
Participation is simple and easy – just pick a spot and count the birds you see for at least 15
minutes on one of the four days, or for as long as you like on each the four days. You also have
several options for how to report your data: through Merlin, eBird Mobile, or manually counting
and uploading to the site from your computer. Whether you count one bird or hundreds, join
thousands of other birdwatchers and count birds for science.
Launched in 1998 by Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, and joined by
Birds Canada in 2009, the GBBC was the first online citizen science project to collect data on
wild birds and to display the results in near real time. The project went global in 2013 when data
was entered into eBird, the world’s largest community science project.
Detailed directions on how to identify, count, and submit are available on the website at https://www.birdcount.org/. This site also has information about an upcoming webinar on
February 15 at 1:00PM with tips on birdwatching and a Q&A session.
Mark your calendar and be a part of a global citizen science event where the world comes
together for the love of birds!
Lisa Westberry, Partner Liaison – Dept of Natural Resources (DNR), Wildlife Resources Division (WRD): cons_dnr@gnpa.org , and Co-Partner Liaison – Friends of Ga State Parks: cons_friends@gnpa.org
Kathy Aspy, Member
Susan Perz, Member
Jimmy Cash, Member
Tom Simpson, Member
If you are interested in joining the Conservation Photography Committee, contact Dwain and Marcia at cons_chair@gnpa.org
Saturday, September 24, 2022, is National Public Lands Day. As part of commemorating this day, Friends of Georgia State Parks and Historic Sites (Friends) hosts Your State Parks Day, a day when volunteers arrive at Parks throughout the state to participate in park projects and give back to the places that offer us a wonderful setting in which to enjoy nature. Friends is a Conservation Partner with GNPA and would love to have a photographer on hand at each park to record the efforts of the volunteers.
This year, Friends will launch a state-wide project, Project Blaze a Trail, where volunteers will remap all of the trails in Georgia’s State Parks to update the trail maps. Volunteers will track the mileage, log the terrain and difficulty of each trail, and re-blaze trails to make them easier to follow. Additionally, volunteers will perform trail maintenance and collect trash along the trails.
Along with Blaze a Trail, Friends chapters at many parks will also have other projects. Volunteers will help beautify areas around park offices and entrances, restore picnic tables, plant pollinator gardens, and a perform a variety of other tasks depending on individual Park needs.
Times may vary from park to park, but most participate from 9 AM to 2 PM. No problem if you have an afternoon commitment and need to leave a bit early. At some parks drinks and lunch will be provided and work usually stops between 12 and 1 when everyone gathers to eat. Entry into the Parks will be free for anyone volunteering, and there is usually a free t-shirt involved.
Friends is asking for photographers to take photos of the volunteers at work. Photos will be used on social media, in Friends publications and mailings, and may be archived to promote Your State Parks Day in future years. Our partners at Friends provide full photo credit to both the photographer and to GNPA whenever an image is used.
GNPA members are mostly nature photographers, not event or portrait photographers. However, Your State Parks Day is an easy event to shoot. Volunteers are glad to be there and love being photographed while they work. No special equipment is needed, just a camera. If you’re not there, someone will be taking photos with a cell phone – great for social media, but not so great for print purposes. Photographing this event is much like taking candid photos of your own family, including the group shots where someone is invariably looking in the wrong direction!
It’s a no-stress event.
Interested?? Please email Jenny Burdette at cons_friends@gnpa.org to get more information and/or sign up. She can provide more details on how to shoot the event, which park is near you, answer any questions, etc. Mark September 24 on your calendar and bring your camera to a state park for a fun morning!
