By Arden Nguyen
When she’s not serving as president of Art Club or at practice on the varsity track team, where can senior Amy-Grace Ratanapratum be found? Probably participating in a bird count or exploring the beach with the local chapter of the Audubon Society, a national environmental conservation and birdwatching organization.
For Ratanapratum, being in nature is, well, second nature.
“I’ve always loved bugs, plants, and animals,” she said of her interest in the world outdoors. So much so that in fifth grade, her mother enrolled her in the summer day camps offered by the Sea and Sage Audubon Society, the organization’s Orange County chapter.
At camp, Ratanapratum learned such things as how to identify birds and the importance of different plants and animals to the surrounding ecosystem. But she also came to admire the teens known as junior naturalists that were so involved in her learning experience.
“The junior naturalists were, in my fifth-grade mind, the coolest people I had ever met,” Ratanapratum said. “I knew that when I became old enough, I wanted to be just like them.”
That dream came true. Ratanapratum, now herself a junior naturalist, has since had the chance to take part in citizen science through birding expeditions with experts in the field.
“[A bird count] entails being assigned a certain region at a local park/preserve and taking a census of every single bird we can see and identify,” she explained. “The data is used for a variety of research, as well as to track the health of local species.”
Her work also includes volunteering for one to four weeks at the summer camp for kids and attending fundraisers like a summer barbecue or outreach events like festivals and expositions.
Among the many adventures she’s had with the Audubon Society, one of Ratanapratum’s fondest memories is a recent field trip she took to the Salton Sea in the deserts of California.
“Imagine an enormous body of water topped by an overcast sky. The sand under your feet isn’t sand, but instead what looks like fish bones,” she said. “It’s really a singular experience. I’d never been anywhere like it.”
What’s the best aspect of being a junior naturalist? For Ratanapratum, it’s not nature, but rather the community.
“Where else can I be in a van full of kids my age, passing the time by identifying the birds we see outside? Who else is going to get excited about the new edition of the National Geographic field guide to the birds of America? Who else will drop everything just for a chance to see a Painted Redstart? What other group of teenagers has numbered lists of the bird species they’ve seen―and competitively compares numbers? I’ve found a family with the junior naturalists.”
This story was originally published in the 2020 RED Magazine.
