Newly minted CalNat Graduates gather for a group photo. Photo courtesy of Tuleyome

WOODLAND, CA (MPG) - As a break from the real world, I photograph birds. Passersby ask questions about birds, but also about plants, nature and history. All too often the answer was “I wish I knew!”, until I learned that Tuleyome, in partnership with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, offers the California Naturalist Course. Held near the Berryessa Snow Mountain Monument, this certification program is designed to train citizens to become better interpreters of nature. I jumped at the chance to join.

The default world melted away in the rear-view mirror as I traded pavement for a curving dirt road wedged between a forest and a steaming creek. Columbian Black-tailed Deer served as a wilderness welcoming committee. 

On a misty Sunday evening, we nineteen strangers gathered on a chilly yoga deck at Wilbur Hot Springs, our home for the week, hoping to better understand California’s unique environment. After the introductory class, our instructor, a talented botanist, led us on a walk to study the plants we sped by hours earlier.

In light rain, this gathering of aspiring naturalists ranging from twenty-something to retirement age examined scores of plants along the edge of a muddy road. We asked questions and drew in field journals. A majestic double rainbow materialized over our heads, evidence that magic was in the air. 

Tuleyome condensed forty hours of college-level instruction, sixteen hours of field trips and a service project into a single marathon week. We found ourselves at grown-up sleep-away camp. No phone calls, no internet: just hands-on learning, surrounded by the natural world.

Days began with a 6:30 a.m. field trip, followed by morning and afternoon classes, ending at sunset after another field trip. We studied geology; the California water grid; plants, animals, deserts and wetlands; energy, environmental issues and more. Guest speakers delighted us: a bat specialist brought live bats. A woman who built beaver dams - without beavers - led us to view a formerly scarred meadow that was now bursting with life thanks to her company’s intervention. We had a class project: removing fire fuel from a hillside, then packing the cuttings into a gully, to slow erosion and help recharge local aquifers during rain. 

Even under the pressure of this dawn-to-dusk schedule, our group grew closer. This special course in this enchanted place permitted us to share a curiosity and vulnerability that adults usually hide beneath layers of small talk. One event indelibly illustrates this: 

Our third day ended with a hike, where we learned to identify Turkey Tangle Frog Fruit, Purple Owl’s Clover and many other plants, and how to share those observations in iNaturalist. Afterwards, I ambled back to my cabin on foot while some others rode ahead in a truck. As the sun sank behind Molok Luyuk Ridge, I heard a dozen of them ahead of me oohing and ahhing, as if viewing fireworks.

Had they discovered a bear cub? A rare bird? I doubled my pace to reach them, only to find this ragtag band of naturalists-in-training staring at a wall of rock, unselfconsciously reveling in the wonder of … something I couldn’t discern.

Finally, a classmate whispered: “Bats!”

In the expanding darkness, hundreds of Yuma Myotis bats streamed out of a shuttered mine, flitting low over our heads and chaotically zooming toward Sulphur Creek to catch insects. Under nature’s spell, we silently shared the moment as a group. I knew then, these were my people.

By week’s end we could distinguish a leather oak from a blue oak; saw the ramifications of California’s Mediterranean climate, her serpentine soil and diverse biomes; learned to make an edible salad from wildflowers; could explain the unique qualities of a riparian habitat (and dozens of others); we even grasped the distinctions among transform, divergent and convergent tectonic plate boundaries so well that two students ably demonstrated them in a hilarious interpretive dance. Which is to say: we learned a lot and had fun doing it.

Tuleyome’s California Naturalist course gave us more than the names of plants and animals: we slowed down enough to observe and understand. That bird, or wildflower, or mountain, experienced and understood, nourishes the wild heart and satisfies more deeply than the ephemeral distractions concocted inside a silicon chip.

Our California wilderness is the real world. Learning more about this magnificent state enriches the appreciation of its beauty. We arrived as strangers; we left as nineteen Certified California Naturalists, our souls rejuvenated, our understanding expanded, on a mission to carry that knowledge to others.

Michael Perry is a Certified California Naturalist. The Certified California Naturalist course is presented by Tuleyome in partnership with University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. Tuleyome is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit conservation organization based in Woodland, CA. For more information go to www.tuleyome.org.