The Naturalist’s Blog

Week of May 18, 2025 – May 24, 2025 by Anna Stunkel, Environmental Educator If you wander outside on a mid-May day, what do you notice first in nature? For many of us, it might be birds! As I write this blog on the back deck of the Interpretive Center at Baltimore Woods, birds are singing in every direction. A flurry of goldfinches is chattering out by the field on the [...]

Week of May 11, 2025 – May 17, 2025 by Kaylen Iorio, Environmental Educator In the heart of springtime we celebrate mothers in all capacities, from the family members we hold closely to the teachers, coaches, and camp counselors that help shape us in our early years. This time of year, mothers are beginning to raise their young in the wild too! Birds are building nests and preparing for eggs to [...]

Week of May 4, 2025 – May 10, 2025 by Elizabeth Suzedell, Environmental Educator After 26 weeks of counting the birds at our feeders, the Project Feederwatch season has come to an end. Every year, Baltimore Woods staff and volunteers record the birds that visit our feeders for this international citizen science project, which runs from November 1st to April 30th. Data from these feeder bird counts around the United States and Canada [...]

Week of April 27, 2025 – May 3, 2025 by David DuBois, Director of Stewardship Have you ever noticed the bees that swarm in early spring along the Boundary Trail on the way to Phillips Pond? These stingless bees, which are harmless to hikers, love the bare soil in the trail to nest in while they spend their day pollinating plants that bloom in mid-spring including spring wildflowers, wild cherries, and [...]

Week of April 20, 2025 – April 26, 2025 by Anna Stunkel, Environmental Educator After a long, cloudy winter with mostly overcast days, the sun is finally making an appearance. It feels rejuvenating to wake up to blue and cloudless skies with robins and chickadees singing. For those of us who spend time hibernating indoors over the winter, this sunshine is a welcome invitation to spend more time outside again. I [...]

Week of April 13, 2025 – April 19, 2025 by Kaylen Iorio, Environmental Educator The Ospreys are returning! As early as March you may be able to spot the dark brown and white birds of prey returning to nest for the summer and I’m always so excited when I spot the first Osprey of the season. Ospreys fascinate me as they seem to plop down and nest wherever they see fit. [...]

Week of April 6, 2025 – April 12, 2025 by Elizabeth Suzedell, Environmental Educator How did people predict the weather hundreds of years ago? Long before computers and satellites, people had to rely on their own observations of the skies and nature to make a forecast. Observations of weather trends led to the creation of hundreds of proverbs and sayings that actually do have some truth to them (sometimes). “Red sky [...]

Week of March 30, 2025 – April 5, 2025 by Catherine McLaughlin, Environmental Educator I fell victim to “false spring” last week. When the weather was above 50 degrees and the sun was out… I was wearing t-shirts and longing for summer activities. Now it has been back down to normal spring temperatures of the 30s or 40s and I find myself having to be patient again for the warm weather [...]

Week of March 23, 2025 – March 29, 2025 by Anna Stunkel, Environmental Educator This past weekend on Saturday, I woke up with a familiar feeling of anticipation. It was time to head over to Derby Hill in Mexico, NY for the first busy weekend day of the spring hawkwatch season! Each spring, from March 1 to May 31, a biologist busily records the migrating birds of prey (raptors) passing Derby [...]