Missouri Master Naturalist Training – Week 5

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There were 2 training evenings and a Saturday field trip in week 5 of my Missouri Master Naturalist Training.

The first evening was about Lions (mountain lions), Tigers (tiger swallowtail butterflies), and bears (black bears) native to Missouri. The tigers and bears have established populations in the state whereas the lions are wandering males from other states (so far). The bears segment included a pelt, skull…and some videos of black bears enjoying a good back scratch (using a tree trunk) and a slides about how the research on the Missouri bear population is done/what has been learned. The largest concentration of black bears in Missouri is close to Springfield!

The second evening was about prairies, which was a good follow up to our field trip to La Petite Gemme a few weeks ago, and animal skulls. The animal skulls session was probably the one with the most new-to-me content; there as a collection of skulls that we were told to organize in a continuum from herbivore to omnivore to carnivore…what a great hands on experience. The most unusual skull was the one from the armadillo!

The field trip was to the Springfield Botanical Gardens. It was in two segments:

  • Focusing on the Roston Native Butterfly House and Caterpillar Buffet garden next to it…with the butterfly garden nearby where there were quite a few migrating Monarch butterflies (one of them that we watched being tagged).

  • Then a general walk around the garden with some commentary on the features of the garden, the challenge of vandalism, and lots of evidence of fall. I picked up a few leaves and a black walnut to add to my tree educational trunk. The sky was clear…so an excellent day for looking up at trees!

The day also included a presentation about the value of dark sky (also learning that St. Louis’ Stacy Park is an Urban Dark Sky Place) and dissection of a Barn Owl pellet. I found a complete mouse skull and backbone in my pellet (and pieces of an insect’s exoskeleton) along with a lot of smaller bones; I was one of the last students to leave because I was finding so many bones in my pellet!