WildWood Western New York

Syd Mecca – Founder & Naturalist

Syd@WildWoodWNY.org

Work history: Prior to WildWood WNY, I was the Director of Education at Penn Dixie Fossil Park & Nature Reserve. I’ve also worked as a seasonal naturalist with NYS Parks Niagara Region Parks Interpretive Programs Office, a teacher’s aide at a Stanley G. Falk School, and a habilitation instructor through SASi. I graduated from Allegheny College in 2019 with a degree in Environmental Studies.

Favorite season: Fall! Although I’m not a fan of shorter days, I love the autumnal colors and cooler weather. Typically fall is also a great time to find fungi in WNY!

Favorite place to explore in WNY: I currently spend a lot of time at Emery Park in South Wales! Emery Park has an amazing variety of flora, fauna, and fungi that can be found year-round.

Most exciting thing to find in the woods: Mushrooms and lichen, for sure! I’m a huge fan of fungi because they’re incredibly diverse in form and function. I love that fungi are often ephemeral – basically, they’re here one day and gone the next. The novelty of finding a cool mushroom where there were none the day before will always be exciting for me!

Lichen are strange, complex lifeforms that are still quite poorly understood by science. Some species of lichen are so small that they’re tough to see without magnification, some lichen form communities that look like alien landscape, and some species are quite robust and are easy to mistake as plants. The lichen I’m holding in my picture is one such plant-like lichen in the Evernia genus.

Favorite part of being an environmental educator: Well, I love sharing what I love! Being able to teach people about the weird, wild, wonderful world around us has been one of the most rewarding parts of my life. I’ve also found that nature can be a strong uniting force to bring together folks who may not otherwise connect, so being able to help bring people together to learn and love nature is amazing.