WHATELY — After the success of last year’s “Caterpillooza,” Quonquont Farm is hosting another event for visitors to meet crawling caterpillars alongside a few new unsung heroes of habitats across the Connecticut River Valley.
The event, titled “Valley Wild” for its crew of creatures, will kick off at 11 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 23, and last until 4 p.m. There will be food for attendees and a full schedule of activities, including live presentations from raptor rehabilitator Tom Ricardi and Thomas Tyning, a Pittsfield resident who teaches Berkshire Community College students about amphibians and reptiles, including snakes.
“They thought that maybe snakes would be a good topic for the folks who want to come, and I said, ‘Why not? What could possibly go wrong?'” Tyning said jokingly.
The snake expert grew up surrounded by the forests, wetlands and snakes of the Connecticut River Valley. In first grade, he started sneaking snakes to school in his pockets.
“It didn’t take long before I realized how many people didn’t like — and not only didn’t like but a lot of people went out of their way to kill — these things,” Tyning recalled.
While people shuddered at Tyning’s interest in snakes and other reptiles and amphibians, the unknown around the creatures drew him to learning more. Despite their abundance, Tyning said many of them fly under the forest’s radar.
“If you take a trail through the forest here anywhere in western Mass., you hear the birds, you see fabulous plants, the trees are great, the wildflowers might still be in bloom and it’s a wonderful scene … but what you don’t see is the most abundant vertebrate in the New England forest system — it’s a little skinny salamander called the red-backed [salamander],” Tyning gushed. “There’s still lots more to learn about them. … That’s sort of the fun part.”
At “Valley Wild,” Tyning will share his discoveries from tracking snakes and other animals and show attendees shed snakeskin and a few of his live neighbors, from a garter snake to a milk snake, ring-necked snake and brown snake. With a chuckle, he added, “Herpetologists are not known for their flowery naming of things; they’re not bird people.”
The scientist does not expect people to leave with plans to add a pet snake into their lives, but he hopes they leave with a little less fear.
“They’re not just scaly worms; they’re a lot more fascinating than that,” Tyning said. “We need more people to get over their old-fashioned, silly ideas about snakes and just embrace them … mentally that is, not physically.”
In his classrooms and conversations, Tyning said people often know more about faraway plants and animals than the critters in their own backyards. According to Tyning and Quonquont Farm co-owner Allison Bell, “Valley Wild” aims to introduce locals to the creatures they share a forest with through Tyning and Ricardi’s knowledge, the returning Caterpillar Lab display and screenings of footage from naturalists’ wildlife cameras.
Bell said her cameras capture “everything from mice to moose,” including bears, which she described as the “poster child” of wildlife cameras.
“They’re not all the most glamorous things, but every creature is equally important,” Bell said. “There are flashy caterpillars and then there are nondescript caterpillars, and they have fascinating lives that you might not know about unless you meet one here.”
According to Bell and Ricardi, interacting with wildlife can help inspire people to protect the planet they share with the creatures.
“Any event that gives the public a view of wildlife in any way matters,” Ricardi said.
“It enriches your life to understand that you’re sharing a planet with a lot of other living things, and I think once you understand that, you start to care about the planet a little more, and that couldn’t be any more important than it is these days,” Bell said. “We’re always learning, we’re always sharing, and we enjoy sharing that with other people. There’s so much joy in it. Beyond the levels of concern for what’s happening with the world, I think it’s important to find the joy and wonder first.”
The event will be held rain or shine in Quonquont Farm’s event barn and pavilion. To attend, visitors must register for a time slot and pay for the $10 tickets in advance at tinyurl.com/ywtutk6j due to limited parking.
