The Naturalist’s Blog

Week of September 18, 2022 – September 24, 2022 by Bridget Jones, Environmental Educator As dusk begins to fall earlier, I’ve been thinking about the wildlife that comes out at night. At our Night at the Woods program this past Friday, we were lucky enough to hear several Eastern Screech Owls calling to each other in the woods! The experience made me look forward to cold winter nights, when owls [...]

Week of September 11, 2022 – September 17, 2022 by Elizabeth Suzedell, Environmental Educator Autumn is the foggiest time of the year. As we approach the equinox, you may notice more fog in the valleys, over the lakes and ponds, through the fields and forests, or in your neighborhood. With the shorter days and longer nights this season, fog will become more common. Fog is simply a cloud that forms [...]

Week of September 4, 2022 – September 10, 2022 by Anna Stunkel, Environmental Educator While many of us may know songbirds as generally diurnal creatures, a mass migration of them occurs at night during the spring and fall. Nocturnal migrants include birds such as warblers, thrushes, vireos, and sparrows. These little birds may fly by night in order to avoid the watchful eyes of hawks and other predators, to save [...]

Week of August 28, 2022 – September 3, 2022 by Elizabeth Suzedell, Environmental Educator As a lover of all things weather, especially clouds, sunset is my favorite time of the day. There is quite the contrast between the light blue skies with white or gray clouds at noontime and the bright warm colors you can see at the end of the day. Sometimes, sunsets look as if someone took a [...]

Week of August 21, 2022 – August 27, 2022 by Bridget Jones, Environmental Educator Among the green leaves of summer, flowers bring splashes of color to fields and forests across Baltimore Woods. Their vibrant colors and unique shapes catch our attention and entice us to pause for a moment, slow down, and appreciate their beauty. But the striking colors and patterns of flowers evolved to attract attention from a very [...]

Week of August 14, 2022 – August 19, 2022 by Anna Stunkel, Environmental Educator On warm August nights, I always look forward to katydid choruses. As the sun goes down outside my window, True Katydids gradually burst into song. It starts with a few of their classic “kat-y-did” calls, and eventually the treetops are echoing with their raspy chorus. The True Katydid has one of the most recognizable katydid songs, [...]

Week of August 7, 2022 – August 13, 2022 by Elizabeth Suzedell, Environmental Educator If you take a look up at the sky on a few different days, chances are you will see a wide variety of cloud types. Observing the beauty and unique shapes of several clouds can be an enjoyable activity, as well as informative; the types of clouds you see can give hints to what the weather [...]

Week of July 31, 2022 – August 6, 2022 (Originally published August 30, 2020) by Eliza Phillips, Environmental Educator For as long as humans have been on this planet we have been making art. Creating drawings, carvings, paintings, sculptures, music, and more about the things all around us. Most notably about the natural world around us. And no wonder we have, nature is breathtakingly beautiful! From sunrise to sunset we [...]

Week of July 24, 2022 – July 30, 2022 by Anna Stunkel, Environmental Educator As summer camp started last week, the preschool campers in my group were particularly fascinated by daddy longlegs! These creatures are especially active during the summer, and we saw several of them crawling around on their spindly legs each day. The campers enjoyed gathering around to watch them move, and spotting them resting atop stinging nettle [...]