Chapter News

By Dawn Bené & Skip Mathews (2024)

We began our presentation to Boy Scout Troop 220 in Lee’s Summit, MO, with a “Journey into Nature” which included a slide show that was enthusiastically accompanied by the Scouts playing a various array of percussion instruments to enhance the Journey.  

The presentation continued with an overview of Missouri Conservation and the MMN program, how we got involved, and our participation and requirements to becoming a Master Naturalist. 

We talked about our classes and our amazing field trips, which included touring a remnant prairie, a Missouri River Boat Cruise and conducting a water quality test at the Little Blue.  Our presentation also highlighted Douglas Talamy’s book “Nature’s Best Hope”.  We encouraged the Scouts to create their own “Homegrown National Park” by sharing Talamy’s ideas of planting native plants, changing out white bulbs to yellow bulbs, providing food and water for animals and birds, and shrinking the lawn.  We also talked about the importance of insect population. 

We concluded our presentation with a lively Q&A, a drawing for prizes and refreshments! 

 The presentation and the engagement and enthusiasm from the Scouts exceeded our expectations.  We also received great feedback from the Scout leaders!  Thanks for having us Troop 220!!!

Story by Jim Hinds

Photos by Melanie Myers, Scott Hatcher, and Shannen Cisneros

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, February 7, seven Master Naturalists went to Indian Creek at 99th & Holmes in South Kansas City to do our winter monitoring and clean up.

Our usual path through a scrubby forest was now a walk through a bulldozed area. Some of the dirt bulldozed was pushed almost into the streambed, but our water testing showed no adverse effects yet from this construction/destruction.

Our testing showed the usual winter higher levels of conductivity. This test detects levels of chemical ions in the water. Higher levels in the winter (I believe) is due to the use of road salt.

Several members of the group will be taking the Stream Team Level One certification in April. Three of the people helping are from the 2025 class, and are doing their capstones for Stream Team. 

The capstone for John Church is to plan and create an outreach team for stream team to represent Stream Team at community events. See the February 24 and April 22 listings for an opportunity to help.

Nate Blanton‘s capstone is locating and coordinating a third monitoring site for our team north of the river.

For the third project, Shannen Cisneros will be creating and installing signs at our monitoring sites, letting the public know that the site is monitored by the Osage Trails Stream Team. The signs will include a QR code that will direct people to a website that Shennen and I are creating. The site will include basic information about Missouri Stream Team, what species can be found in the two areas, and have charts showing our results on the creeks in the past two years.

We also always include a stream cleanup as part of our trips each time. Beyond the usual plastic trash, this time we collected a tire rim, two shopping carts, and a massage table.

The two-day 2026 Deep Roots: Plan it Native conference was well attended by Osage Trails Master Naturalists.

Steve Cook (2024) Leads an Introduction to Birding workshop at the Discovery Center on February 7, 2026.

Story and photos
by Nicole Martin

I spent three weeks working with Salterra, a new adventures-based resort located in South Caicos, in developing experiences that highlight two of the small island’s hidden treasures: dark skies and birds.

Using a sky quality meter provided by Dark Skies Missouri, I worked with the resort’s adventure team to collect and document sky quality readings around the island. (Good news: the sky quality in South Caicos is spectacular, with a limiting magnitude of 6+.) In addition, I gave stargazing presentations to guests at Salterra while they peered through an 8-inch telescope at planets, nebulae and the moon. I talked about my career with NASA and used this platform to interpret the issue of sky glow and how outdoor lighting is impacting wildlife and people.

During the day I led bird tours and showed guests around the historic salt-producing salt marshes, known as salinas, where over a hundred flamingos winter as well as several species of herons and shorebirds. Freshwater wells that had once been built for donkeys in the salt mining days were surrounded by warblers and vireos who could be heard singing all day in the 80 F sunshine. Some highlights were a flock of long-distance migrant Red Knots, charismatic breeding Reddish Egrets, and a pair of Clapper Rails who ran screaming out of the mangroves to introduce themselves to us. 

Over the course of three weeks I documented 76 bird species. Between that, putting South Caicos on the dark skies map, and in conjunction with the resort’s commitment to turtle-safe lighting and native plant landscapes, I feel the island is in a unique position to protect important stopover and wintering habitat for migratory birds and will be accessible to a wider audience. The land side of the island was so captivating, I barely made it to the sea!