Cable Natural History Museum

Although I often hear their rattling bugle calls echoing across the lake and through my open windows, having cranes nest where I could see them was a new treat. For a few weeks, every warm afternoon found me biking along that stretch of road with my camera at the ready. Each time, the evening sunlight spotlighted the face of a crane on the nest.

The post 377 – Baby Food first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

Last Sunday I was asked to give the message for the Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Flower Ceremony. Everyone brought a flower, they were admired in a bouquet, and each person left with a different flower. This symbolized the unique value of each person and the way we came together to create a beautiful bouquet. To illustrate this idea, I chose to talk about ghost pipe (previously named Indian pipe), a plant whom I’ve been puzzling over for a while. In preparing the talk, I realized that I’d learned a lot from ghost pipe.

The post 376 – The Teachings of Ghost Pipe first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

Scientist E.O. Wilson’s book Biophilia hypothesized that humans possess an innate tendency to seek connections with nature and other forms of life. He wrote, “To an extent still undervalued in philosophy and religion, our existence depends on this propensity, our spirit is woven from it, hope rises on its currents."

I watched as the Wilson’s Warbler bounced like popcorn through the narrow, willow-ish leaves of an unknown desert shrub. While this bird was named for a different Wilson, he certainly satisfied E.O. Wilson’s Biophilia.

The post 375 – Wilson’s Warblers on Their Way first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

I apologize for the weird audio quality this week! I'm traveling -- as you'll hear -- and my audio editing program did an update that takes out breath noises, etc, automatically. But that also changes how my voice sounds and seems to reduce enunciation. If it's too annoying to listen to, you can read the article at: https://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/ 

The post 374 – Networking first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

At the trailhead, the woods were set alight by the sunshine reflecting off the melting snow. While my boots crunched down the trail, my eyes wandered to the trees where life was starting to awaken. Lichens, mosses, and mushrooms decorated the bark in a burst of bright greens, yellows and oranges–a welcome sight against the backdrop of the forest.

The post 373 – Adventures in Porcupine Lake Wilderness first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

“What sweet ode shall we write to spring? Soft and tremulous one minute, tempestuous the next, she proffers her gifts with one fair hand and with the other snatches them away.”

The post 372 – Lois Nestel’s Sweet Ode to Spring first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

A faint string of birdsong filtered through closed windows on a recent morning. It was well after dawn, but thick gray clouds made it feel like the Sun had yet to rise. “Song sparrow!” I exclaimed. “They must have arrived overnight!”

The post 371 – The Sparrow’s Songs first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

The grouse drummed again; thumping slowly at first, and then crescendoing into a rapid-fire blur. As his last vibrations dissipated into the still air, another grouse answered from a neighboring territory. The low-frequency sounds are audible from up to a quarter mile away. I’m always amazed by how much I feel their sound instead of hearing it.

The post 370 – The Pulse of a Waking Forest first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

For three days in the summer of 2018 we worked on this mark-recapture survey along a pipeline access road in the Brooks Range of northern Alaska, gathering data that would help scientists at the nearby Gates of the Arctic National Park estimate snowshoe hare population numbers for this year. Our opinion? The population was high. Almost every trap was full, which meant a delayed lunch, and that sense of relief to find an empty trap.

The post 369 – Snowshoe Hares Eat Dirt first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

Listening to a pair of wood ducks explode from a tiny patch of open water in a woodland pond and woo-eek through the woods is a distinctly springtime experience. Wood ducks are uniquely adapted for life in the forest, with strong claws on their webbed toes that allow them to perch on tree branches. Scaring up a pair of wood ducks together is common, because these ducks find a mate on their wintering grounds and arrive home together.

The post 368 – A Home for Wood Ducks first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.