Natural Connections

I met a new friend this spring, and I’ve been heading up north to visit them every chance I get. We didn’t meet online exactly, but I did use an app to figure out their location. You see, I read abou…

Keir, who specializes in moss, passed around tuft after tuft of green Dr. Seussian inventions. The scientific names he gave with each sample slipped through my brain in a fog of unspellable syllables…

With a quick push from shore, my old green canoe caught the current and we swept downstream on the Namekagon River. The recent rains have filled the river with more water than I’ve seen in a couple o…

Coggin and I followed Karen’s memory through the dark swamps in search of this rare flower. The dirt path wound around spruce, fir, birch, and cedars. A hint of color caught my eye. There, almost cru…

The fleshy stem bore no leaves, just a sprig of beautiful little flowers on the upper half. Each blossom looked like a whimsical elf.

Coralroots exist underground for much of their lives, and their f…

As I climbed back into my car with a camera full of more lovely wildflower photos, I smiled at my good luck. Here in Wisconsin and Minnesota, we have quite a variety of habitats and soil types in a r…

The cool, damp air smelled delicious as I ambled up the gravel road. I’ve been up and down ladders and scaffolding for exhibit construction lately, and so I haven’t had the energy for big bike rides…

“During this activity,” I explained, “you will each become a professor of something in these woods.” 

Over the years, I’ve found that this Professor Hike activity is very effective at connecting stud…

I heard it first, since I knew what to expect. I pointed eagerly toward a featureless place in the bushes. Peent. The brand-new birder with me strained to pick that one sound out of the thicket. Peen…

What if we stopped calling trees, water, minerals, fruits, fish, soil, and everything else Natural Resources and started using the term Earthly Gifts? This was one of the first questions posed by Dr.…

Birds can collide with windows in any season, but I’ve always noticed an increasing number of those sickening thuds in spring. As waves of migrating birds head north, we see both a huge increase in t…

As a naturalist, I get the strangest emails. I try not to check them at home, but when my phone buzzed and the subject said “June bug on steroids?” it was worth interrupting my evening chores. “The p…