Jun 3, 2020 | Outdoors
By Bill Cook As a kid walking to school on rainy days, I would routinely pick-up nightcrawlers stranded on the pavement, and toss them back into a yard or roadside. Now, I stomp on them. While I don’t think that my heart has hardened against innocent animals, I’ve...
May 27, 2020 | Outdoors
By Carol Stiffler They’re almost here. Monarch butterflies are on their annual migration up from Mexico, where they spent the winter packed together in oyamel fir trees, waiting for spring. According to the Journey North organization, which relies on human spotters to...
May 13, 2020 | Outdoors
By Carol Stiffler Now that our tiny, encore winter is over, the weather is just right for morel mushrooms to appear on the forest floor. Popping up under last year’s leaves, the prized fungi are already luring people into the woods. Seney resident Johnny Bowler did a...
Apr 22, 2020 | Outdoors
Over the weekend our friends Laura Wong and Larry McGahey biked into the refuge and confirmed the return of the two oldest documented Common Loons on the planet. The male, called the ABJ, was banded as a young refuge chick in 1987, and thus his age is known precisely:...
Apr 1, 2020 | Outdoors
By Dan Hardenbrook One of the few activities that is actually being encouraged during Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s “Stay Home, Stay Safe” Executive Order is getting outside. Walking, hiking, running, and biking, as well as walking your pets were among items listed as...
Mar 25, 2020 | Outdoors
By John Blanchard Spring is in the air and that means that across the north, the scent of maple is in the air. Maple sap is the first food nature produces each year. Remember the lush maple forests last year? Billions and billions of maple leaves that went from green...
