Lauren Kras - Founder of Worn Field Guide
I'm work for a non-profit helping to protect critical habitat through conservation. I also teach freshman biology labs and have a huge passion for Baseball, Birds, and Botany. I hold a master's degree in Plant Biolgy. Here's a little bit about my interests:
BOTANY: One of my main interests in life is botany. I fell in love with botanizing somewhere around January of 2006 when I took a course in Desert Ecology. The course spanned the southwest US and I learned a lot of plants. I had had some experience going into the course identifying plants from an alpine ecology course, but during the 3 weeks I found that botanizing was not only an enjoyable passion, but an enjoyable passion that I was good (relatively speaking) at. Ever since then I've gone down the botany road and I graduated with my M.S. in plant biology in May 2012. To me, the most interesting plants are those with unique adaptations living in extreme environments (ex. alpine, bog, & desert plants)
BIRDING: My favorite active hobby is birding and birdwatching (and yes there is a technical difference! I've seen over 450 species of birds in my life in the United States alone. I have also done a bit of birding in Canada and Trinidad and Tobago. Currently my favorite place to bird is the New Hampshire sea coast because it is close and you never know what might turn up! Once upon a time I hated birding but within 18 months of declaring I would never look at a bird again, I was waking up with the sunrise regularly to beef my list to 200 in the state of Michigan while taking classes at AuSable Institute. One year later I was back at AuSable and I broke the three hundred mark. My roomates sweetened the deal, so to speak, when I saw # 300 (a Grasshopper Sparrow), by baking me a special 300 life bird cake. In 2009 I decided to go all out in the state of NH and see how many birds I could see within the year. I ended with 308 which was a new state record. I am an avid believer that everyone has an inner-birder that they can connect with.
PHOTOGRAPHY: In case you haven't already noticed, this site is littered with photographs. I enjoy taking photos of birds, plants, people, baseball, and even occasionally I attempt pure artistic representations. Ben GriffithBen joined the Worn Field Guide in May 2013 but has been part of Lauren's life since December of 2008. Ben met Lauren at a Christmas Bird Count and offered to show her some gulls sometime. Ben works doing data entry and analysis and also works as a GIS consultant. Ben is finishing his Master's in Natural Resources. His favorite hobbies are Birding, Cooking, and Giving Lauren Backrubs (she wishes!).
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