Early one November morning, a group of birders assembled at the Conservancy’ s Betsy Kerrison site. Certified Master Naturalists with a focus on birds, they fanned out in the pre-dawn chill, taking up positions to survey the area’ s feathered residents
As the dawn chorus began, the bird enthusiasts began recording a species list, birding by ear in the near-total dark. As the sun rose, a fine mist hung over the saltmarsh.“ It was the most beautiful scenery,” remembers Lee Bundrick, the Conservancy’ s senior ecological health & conservation coordinator.“ And we wouldn ' t have known about this misty morning if we didn’ t get out there surveying for birds.”
The birders were the first installment of two waves of Master Naturalists to visit the property that day in order to conduct a“ BioBlitz”— a short, focused biodiversity event designed to create a species inventory of the land. These communitydriven efforts help the Conservancy understand what lives on the property today, both flora and fauna, guiding how the site can be stewarded in the years ahead. The process is part science, part public engagement, and fully rooted in a shared goal: appreciating the ecological richness and rural character of the Sea Islands.
Naturalist Kristina Wheeler, who co-leads
Charleston County Parks’ Master Naturalist training program, helped organize and guide the event. She describes a BioBlitz as“ a focused shortduration event to find and identify as many living species as possible within a specific area.” The goal is comprehensive: to gather observations of plants, insects, fungi, birds, and anything else the land reveals in a single morning.“ We were really in a huge scavenger hunt,” she says with a laugh.
In seeking to better understand their land, the Conservancy tapped a wide array of local expertise and collaborative organizations that turned out to assist. The Coastal Master Naturalist Association membership includes trained natural history volunteers— people with expertise in birding, botany, entomology, ecology, as well as outdoor education. For the Conservancy, this meant gaining access to a wide range of skills that would broaden the early species inventory of the site. Until now, documentation had focused primarily on plants, leaving much still unknown about its insects and birdlife.
54 • CONSERVANCY OF THE SEA ISLANDS