Earth Day means different things to different people. How did you celebrate it this year? What does Earth Day mean to you?

​Click here for some uplifting writing Earth Day’s Promise – Louisiana Master Naturalists – Northeast (louisianamasternaturalistsnortheast.com)

Yesterday Saturday May 7th, at a public Weather and Climate event in Monroe, Louisiana where Meteorologist Tom Pearson taught me much more about weather and climate than I thought I knew (Thanks, Tom), Dr. Anne Fazer, LMNA member, told me "Earth Day is every day now for me."

I had to agree, it really has to be, for us all, don't you think?

​My thanks to Anne for the following material and Kimmie Paxton for the photos.

Earth Day was celebrated as a Herp day in Monroe, Louisiana, in 2022. The Louisiana Master Naturalists Northeast and Friends of Black Bayou organized a joint events schedule that focused on our cold-blooded friends, the reptiles and amphibians. With 1 in 5 reptiles now threatened with extinction according to a study published in Nature (Source BBC News) there has never been a greater need to focus on these creatures.

The day kicked off at 10:00 with a guided walk to look for frogs, turtles and crocodilians. It was blustery around the lake so the alligators kept their heads down as did the turtles. In the swamp by the boardwalks it was a different story. We saw some turtles, frogs many Broad-banded Watersnakes, a Rough Green Snake, and lizards.

Please see Herp Success! – Louisiana Master Naturalists – Northeast (louisianamasternaturalistsnortheast.com)
and
Swamp Night – Louisiana Master Naturalists – Northeast (louisianamasternaturalistsnortheast.com)

The local TV station (KNOE) turned out to interview two of the organizers and film the walkers setting off front detailed account please see LMNE blog. In the evening there was a presentation on frogs and their calls before we set out and what's the boardwalks again. It was a very different place at night. We heard a riot of frog calls and everyone was excited to see a medium sized alligator near the boardwalk in the lake. For me probably the star of the show was a big old bullfrog that was just sitting on the bottom of the lake with huge eardrums, placid, immobile, solid, with ancient lineage.

A team of 8 people prepared for the events remotely using digital remote collaboration tools, Zoom and Mural.

Earth Day’s Promise – Louisiana Master Naturalists – Northeast (louisianamasternaturalistsnortheast.com)

Please find below the Ppt presentation on Frogs and their calls made by K.Paxton and J. Wright with media sourced from Loyola University New Orleans Dept. of Environmental Communications and The Frog Log that we used to mark species observations.
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Click here to download the 121MB Ppt file.