The Naturalist’s Blog

Week of March 20, 2022 – March 26, 2022 by Morgan Ingraham, Environmental Educator As the warm early-Spring sun warms the earth here at Baltimore Woods, the white snow begins to melt away to reveal the wonders of nature waking up after winter’s rest. Among the treasures to discover are peculiar greenish-purple appendages peeking up from the ground. What could they be? Mushrooms? An old piece of plastic? Zombies? Shockingly, [...]

Week of March 13, 2022 – March 19, 2022 by Bridget Jones, Environmental Educator As the snow begins to melt and days get longer, I’ve been looking forward to seeing leaves start to emerge on the trees at Baltimore Woods. Right now, weeks away from the leaves’ emergence, the trees look as still and silent as they have all winter. But at the tips of their branches, tiny buds have [...]

Week of March 6, 2022 – March 12, 2022 by Melissa Kirby, Environmental Educator As the calendar shifts from February to March, the movement from winter toward spring might not feel like it’s coming fast enough, but each day subtle changes can be observed in nature. Spring is on the move – from birds migrating, plants emerging, snow melting, and sap flowing! This past week I hiked the Arboretum Trail [...]

On a recent walk around Baltimore Woods, I noticed that there has been quite a bit of snow melt around trees. This is because the trunks give off heat, resulting in a snow well around the base of each tree.

While the human-made decorations are coming down after the holiday season ends, nature still has plenty of colors, lights, and beauty to decorate the landscape.

Week of February 13, 2022 – February 19, 2022 by Meghan Morral, Environmental Educator This month, while out with our trail school program, we had the pleasure of finding a multitude of different tracks in the snow. Over the course of the afternoon we found rabbit, squirrel and chipmunk tracks. We stopped to examine fisher tracks and vole tunnels. As we hiked along, we discovered a row of dozens of [...]

Week of February 6, 2022 – February 12, 2022 by Bridget Jones, Environmental Educator In winter, humans aren’t the only ones getting outside and enjoying the snow: the bird feeders at Baltimore Woods have seen a flurry of activity this season! Since November, staff members at Baltimore Woods have been participating in Project Feederwatch, an international citizen science project to help bird conservation. Each week, we submit bird counts to [...]

As we welcome the recent snowfall, and as the days gradually become longer, I’ve had the chance to enjoy some new discoveries out on the trails here at Baltimore Woods.

Many things are easier to see in winter: tracks across fresh snow, subtle forms of bark otherwise overshadowed by verdant leaves, bright birds that stand out against a drab background. Unfortunately not everything we can find in winter is what we would like to find.