Late Spring in the Meadow
Week of June 1, 2025 – June 7, 2025 by Elizabeth Suzedell, Environmental Educator With the warmer weather and light until 9pm, spring is a busy time of year. There’s end-of-year events at school, family gatherings and parties, and lots of spring cleaning to do. While we’re occupied by all of this, it feels like the landscape transforms from quiet and dull to lively and bright in the blink of an [...]
Cycles of Life
Week of May 25, 2025 – May 31, 2025 by Katie McLaughlin, Environmental Educator It’s interesting how everything cycles in our lives, and how we can reflect on our past experiences when we take notice of them. Earlier this week I was at my high school for the spring music concert to wish my chorus director a great retirement. They performed a song titled Storm. If you haven’t heard it, the [...]
Connecting with Nature Through Birding
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 [...]
Happy Mother’s Day
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 [...]
Project Feederwatch 2024-25 Wrap-up
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 [...]
“Project GNBee” at Baltimore Woods
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 [...]
Spring Sunshine Among the Flowers
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 [...]
The Return of the Ospreys
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. [...]
Weather Folklore
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 [...]