Interested in helping out with NFAS? Then please read about the following volunteer opportunities. If you are interested in helping out with any of these or have other ideas of your own please contact us via e-mail at info@northforkaudubon.org.
Children’s Programs
We are in need of someone to help with our monthly children’s programs. On the second Saturday morning of every month we offer a Nature Program for children. We would like to expand our offerings with more programs as well as programs aimed at different age groups.
In order to do this, we need more volunteers to help prepare for these events and to assist with the children. If you love children and teaching them about the natural world, we could use your help.
Exhibit Design and Development
We are just beginning to create specialized and permanent exhibits for our Nature Center and we would love to have your help.
We expect the Red House Nature Center at Inlet Pond County Park in Greenport, New York to become a vital, engaging and active place where people of all ages can explore the natural world, up close and personal. Through our exhibits we hope to encourage our visitors, young and old alike, to learn more about the special environment and habitats that exist on the North Fork.
We believe The Red House Nature Center exhibits can be important educational tools for building a community that will value nature as much as we do.
We welcome fresh ideas for what should be in the ‘Ideal Nature Center’, as well as the enthusiasm and talent of our volunteers to help us make these concepts a reality!
If you love Aquariums, Terrariums, Ant Colonies, Frog Ponds, Shells, Rocks, Minerals, Fossils, Feathers, Taxidermy, Botany, Birds Nests, Bugs, Butterflies, Beehives, and Birdcalls, THIS IS FOR YOU!
Garden Volunteers
We are expanding the gardens at The Red House Nature Center to include a native wildflower meadow. We will planting native grasses and forbs,(herbaceous flowering plants). We are also trying to come up with clever ways to foil the resident deer population.
Also in the planning stage is an all Native Woodland Shade Garden.
We need interested and willing gardeners to help us plant, weed, feed, water mulch, and dead head the spent flowers to keep the blooms coming all season long.
Nature Center Reception
We need enthusiastic and friendly volunteers to receive guests who come to walk the trail at Inlet Pond Park. If you can spare a few hours per month meeting and greeting visitors to The Red House we need you. Donating your time will help North Fork Audubon make our valuable resources available to a growing community of Nature enthusiasts on the North Fork.
Responsibilities include:
Being a friendly and helpful presence at the Red House.
Providing visitors with trail maps and bird checklists.
Helping people become members of the North Fork Audubon Society.
Observing the birds and butterflies that come to our man-made pond and native plant gardens right behind the Red House.
Keeping notes related to the day’s activities.
PLOVER PATROL
One of the most endangered species on the North Fork is the Piping Plover. The other is the Least Tern. We need your help to monitor the protection, nesting, growth, fledging, and survival of the plover and tern. You will receive excellent training and support; no previous experience is necessary. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will conduct information and training sessions during the month of April at Jones Beach. Dates will be announced shortly.
Please join our team; you will learn the finer points of observing, monitoring, and installing courtesy fences, Plover Nest “Exclosures” and the importance of educating the public about this important work!
Plovers generally begin nesting in our area at the end of April or beginning of May and are usually finished fledging by the Fourth of July. Least terns come in late May and fledge around August.
Trail Improvement
The trail behind the Red House at Inlet Pond Park is a little over one and a half miles long and meanders through the forest, past the brackish “Inlet Pond” to the Sound, and back again, in a loop around the pond.
This trail was created entirely by volunteers from the North Fork Audubon Society!
As with all modifications to a natural habitat this trail requires some maintenance. Regularly scheduled “Free the Trees” work parties liberate our trees from the grip of invasive vines.
We are planning to build an observation blind along the edge of Prentice Pond and install rustic benches at scenic areas along the trail.
We welcome additional willing participants to help us with these projects. Regular “Trail Days’ will be scheduled to pick up trash, take the saw to the occasional fallen tree that blocks the trail, and build a few benches.