Hi there, I am a nature and iNat enthusiast from Miami-Dade County and was wondering if there are any resources out there to find people locally or public social events in South Florida (by events I mean any kind of get-together related to nature, such as walks, lectures, bioblitzes and the like). I don’t have many friends and want to get to know others who have similar interests. Many nature spots aren’t safe to be in alone and via a buddy system I feel like I could see much more than I normally do and meet some nice people.
Even if you aren’t from my area any kind of advice helps! Where would one go to find stuff like this and if you have a group of your own how did it come to be? Thanks!
I wonder if there’s an Audubon chapter you could join? Social media is also a great way to reach out to others in your area. I don’t use it myself, but I think some naturalists use things like facebook for that very reason. Nature centers are also a good place to look. If you wanted to organize your own nature walk or something, maybe reach out to a public library too – I find that many of them love community engagement!
I hope some of this helps, and that you can find others who also share your interests. The community aspect is definetely one of the things I love about community science :)
I’m from Broward. A lot of our parks have flyers of different events they have going on in their educational buildings and stuff. Native plant sales, night hikes, sometimes seasonal events like Equinox themed walks. I went to a Moth Night at Long Key Nature center a few years ago, I’m not the most social but it seems like a fun event for meeting people. The Moth night is a reoccurring event, I think it’s also one of the events advertised on the flyers you’ll see in our parks buildings. Our county also seems to posts some of these events online, and I think there are also e-mailing lists for the events too. I Imagine Dade might have similar info online. https://www.broward.org/Parks/Pages/default.aspx
The City Nature challenge in April should give you lot of events in your county, I went to a Dade one a few years ago. If you participate on iNat a lot, you’ll get to meet online some of the people you’ll run into hosting or participating in those events. Some of these observers and IDers are active in local groups like you might be looking for. https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2024-south-florida-cncsoflo
The Florida Native Plant society seems like it might be what you’re looking for too. From my understanding they do a lot of group lectures and walks/bioblitzes. I believe there is a fee? but I’m not sure. https://dade.fnpschapters.org/
Some of our parks have a “Friends of” program where you get to participate in fundraising and helping the park. I know Long Key has this, not sure how common it is in Dade though.
We also have the UF/IFAS extension lab, they do a lot of educational programs. I’ve been to a free citizen science lecture they had and also did their Bee College awhile back. Not sure if they’re still doing the free classes, but they are still running the Bee College (in cycle with other UF campuses) and Master Gardener program and I think they do the Master Naturalist programs too. Those you have to pay for though, so not the most accessible. I wonder if any of the Miami colleges have similar outreaches, especially the free lectures.
Frost Science Museum might have some options too, I know they have a project on here at least. https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/miami-nature-map