Next Program: 7:30 pm February 14, 2012
Outdoor writer and photographer James Smedley will present Four Seasons with James Smedley—An Outdoors Agenda for our Annual Dinner and General Meeting.
Have you made any bird or other sightings that might be of interest to members of the club? You can report your sightings by e-mailing them to jwillehman@gmail.com, or you can post them yourselves by going to Report Bird Sightings or Report Other Sightings.
Find out What's New on this Wiki.
Click here to see our schedule of Future Programs.
Learn about our Upcoming Outings to scenic natural areas of Northern Ontario and Upper Michigan.
Check out the latest Bird Sightings by Don Hall, Dave Euler, and other Sault Naturalists.
Enjoy some great nature photos from our Photo Gallery.
Learn how to make your own contributions to this web site by going to Contributing to the Wiki.
To learn about the waiver now required for membership in the Sault Naturalists, click on Membership.
NATURE PHOTO CONTEST. View the winning photos from our December 2009 photo contest and find links to all of the digital photos entered in the Photo Gallery. You can also view all of the photos by going to Flickr and clicking on the appropriate sets. Go to Photo Contest for a report on the contest.
Join the Sault Naturalists
The Sault Naturalists welcomes as members all who share our interest in and respect for the natural world. Click to learn more About the Sault Naturalists, and take a look at our Brochure if you wish. To join the club, print off and fill in a Membership form and mail it with the membership fee to the address on the form.
About the SooNats Web Site
A wiki is an interactive web site that is much easier to set up and use than a traditional web site. For example, Wikipedia is an interactive encyclopedia to which any user of the World Wide Web can make contributions. So a wiki provides a way to serve a community of people with common interests through the internet. This wiki has been created using an online developer called PBWorks, which claims that setting up a wiki is as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich (it's not!).
The SooNats web site will be used not only to provide information to the membership but also to receive information from members and disseminate it to the rest of the membership. This way birders can communicate with other birders, mushroom hunters with other mycophiles, and botanizers with other plant enthusiasts by means of the web site. Ultimately the web site should become a repository for the collective knowledge of the club; a place where anyone can share their success stories, advice, and useful information.
For example, you can make suggestions for future Programs and Outings, or go to the Suggestion Box to suggest additions to and improvements of this web site. You can also report Bird Sightings and Other Sightings of interest. You can file or add to a report on a club Project, and you can make almost any kind of contribution to Your Page. Current or past members who have moved out of the area and members who seldom get to meetings or outings can leave a message for their friends in the club using the Letterbox. If you're not comfortable with the idea of editing the wiki yourself, just e-mail your text or photos to jwillehman@gmail.com in an attachment, or mail your contribution to John Lehman, 4555 S. Nicolet Road, Sault Ste. Marie, MI 49783, and indicate where on the wiki you want it to be posted.
Anyone with access to a computer and internet connection can access this web site by entering its URL, http://soonats.pbworks.com, on a web browser. (If you forget the URL, just enter "soonats" on Google.) You can then view any part of the web site as described under “Navigating the Wiki.” Only members of the Sault Naturalists should be able to edit the web site or add new information to it. This requires a password and authorization, which you can obtain by contacting the wiki administrator, whose contact information follows. Instructions for adding to or modifying text on the web site are given under “Entering and Editing Text” below, and on most pages where such entries are appropriate. Instructions for submitting photos are provided on the Photo Gallery page.
The SooNats wiki is a work in progress, so additional material and pages are added periodically. Click on What's New to get information about recent changes and additions to the wiki. To learn more about wikis in general click on About Wikis or look up “Wiki” in the Wikipedia. For further information about this web site contact the wiki administrator, John Lehman, at 906-635-5095 or jwillehman@gmail.com. Although the administrator will not edit material submitted to the web site by members of the Sault Naturalists without permission, he reserves the right to remove inappropriate material from the web site. Comments and suggestions regarding individual wiki pages are welcome; you can enter them by clicking on the "Comments" button on the appropriate page (after you log in). Note that Comments are posted at the bottom of each page. You can also go to the Suggestion Box to make general comments about the wiki.
Navigating the Wiki
Getting around on the wiki is mostly a matter of clicking on any links that interest you, where a link is a word or phrase underlined and highlighted in blue or (occasionally) some other color. Clicking on a link such as Meetings takes you to another page that has additional links, such as Next Program. Clicking on that link takes you to a page with information about the upcoming meeting.
The main links appear in the Sidebar box on the right side of this and most other pages of the wiki. Simply click on a link in the box to access the desired topic. That may take you directly to the information you're looking for or to a page containing a list of links, from which you can select the one you want. To see a list of pages that are accessible from the Sidebar box, click on Table of Contents. To get back to this page, just click on "SooNats" at the top left corner of a page or on "FrontPage" at the top right corner.
Alternatively, you can click on a folder in the Navigator box (above the Sidebar box) and then on any page title that appears. For example, to locate the club's guidelines for outing participants, click on the "Outings" folder and then on "Outing Guidelines." Pages that aren't in a folder can be found by clicking on "Unfiled Items."
You can also enter a word or phrase in the Search This Workspace box at the top of a page. For example, entering "osprey" should take you to any page on the web site containing that word; you can then use your browser's "Find" function to locate the word on the page. Some pages have links that provide additional information when clicked on. For example, About Wikis is a link that gives you some general information about wikis. This wiki also contains links to many web sites on nature and the environment, which can be accessed from the Web Links page.
Contributing to the Wiki
A wiki can be edited by its authorized users, not just the wiki administrators. Members of the Sault Naturalists who have edited Version 1 of this wiki are authorized to edit the new version. Members in good standing who did not edit Version 1 can be added to the list of authorized users by e-mailing jwillehman@gmail.com or by clicking on "request access" in the small window below the Navigator box. Directions for editing a wiki page, using the editing toolbar, creating links, and uploading files and images are provided on the page Contributing to the Wiki.
Wiki Upgrades
PBwiki has changed its name to PBworks, so the URL of the SooNats Wiki is now http://soonats.pbworks.com.
Previous users of this wiki will notice a new format, due to an upgrade to PBWorks Version 2.0. Most of the features should work the same as in the old version, but if you experience any difficulties, contact me at jwillehman@gmail.com or (906) 635-5095. Users who have previously edited this wiki should be authorized to do so with this new version. If you are a member of the Sault Naturalists and have not previously done any editing but would like to do so, contact me and I'll add you to the list of authorized users. If you are receiving e-mail notices of changes to the wiki but would prefer not to, click on Notification.
A Feb. 2010 upgrade provides yet another way to navigate the wiki. Clicking on the new Pages and Files Tab takes you to a list of all of the pages on the wiki, which can be accessed by clicking on their names, and a list of the files in the Navigator box and their contents. Some users should also see a list of files (photos and documents) that have been uploaded to the wiki.
Please do not edit this page or change any of the links already on the wiki!
Comments (1)
Anonymous said
at 8:34 am on Oct 9, 2007
We're happy to have a way to keep up with all our Sault Nats friends from here in Montana. We'll try to add some interesting content -- and perhaps be good "Sault Nats at large!"
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