Library Naturalist Season Two

Greetings Crawfordsville!  If you enjoyed CDPL’s Library Naturalist series in 2024, then you will love Library Naturalist Season Two in 2025! We have many exciting activities and hikes to explore throughout the year. All our outdoor events are planned on Saturdays, at 10 am, at Brickyard Nature Park (845-1093 Concord Rd., Crawfordsville). We will begin with a Winter Wellness hike on Jan. 18, when we’ll discuss how winter impacts plants and animals as we hike the trails for some fresh air and maybe snow! Registration is not required – just meet us at the park!

Next month, on Feb. 15, we will host the Annual Great Backyard Bird Count, a yearly event organized by the National Audubon Society, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Wild Birds Unlimited since 1998. Join us to put your bird identification skills to the test. We will record sight observations of any birds we see and tally the information to be entered into the GBBC bird database. This way, scientists, researchers, teachers, and others interested in birds can learn from our observations of species populations, variety, migration, and distribution. We’ll be doing our part as citizen scientists to help advance the birding knowledge of Indiana.

On March 22, we plan to host a Lichen Appreciation Hike. We will venture into the woods to observe an often overlooked classification of organisms and discuss what lichens are, their lifecycle, varieties, and what they can reveal about our environment. This is not a field ID course.

On April 19, the Library Naturalist will lead a Moss Discovery Hike. We will search the woods for various mosses, learning their characteristics, life cycle, reproduction, and habits, and enjoying their diversity.

On May 17, we plan to give a Pioneer Plant History Hike, identify many native plants and wildflowers, and discuss their features, ethnobotanical and historical uses, and limited culinary aspects. This program is for information purposes only.

On July 19, we plan to explore Wild Edibles in our local environments. This is an informational program on various edible plants that with proper ID and further training, patrons can forage at their own risk. This event is not a certified foraging course and is not verified by the Indiana Department of Health, Food Protection Division.

On Sept. 20 we will offer a Mushroom Observation hike. This is not an identification course, nor is the Library Naturalist a certified mushroom identifier through the Indiana Department of Health, Food Protection Division. Our hike will be a study on the different kinds of mushrooms that can be found in Indiana, and an educational desire to celebrate National Mushroom Month.

All participants will be required to sign a liability waiver before joining any offsite programs sponsored by Crawfordsville District Public Library and park usage from the City of Crawfordsville (Parks and Recreation) at Brickyard Nature Park. The waiver will be available at the events to sign.

We would like to thank the Crawfordsville Parks and Recreation Department and the Crawfordsville District Public Library Board for making these programs possible for the community.

All events are subject to change due to weather and staff availability. Please visit our library’s calendar at crawfordsvillelibrary.in.gov/calendar for any updates. If you have any questions or would like to receive suggestions on materials available at the library, please contact the CDPL Adult Services Department and direct your questions to the Library Naturalist. You can reach us at (765) 362-2242, ext. 3 or [email protected]. CDPL is open Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m.

Stephanie Morrissette is an avid naturalist and a Library Assistant in the Adult Services Department at CDPL.