February 2024 – Birding Through the Seasons
Last week, while leading a field trip on seasonal discovery, I heard a familiar sound far above my head: the coarse squawk of sandhill cranes. A pair was flying over the prairie, a first for the year, and a signal of the migration season ahead. The arrival of sandhill cranes in Wisconsin is usually reserved for March, however with the warming climate, migrators will likely be returning earlier each year. This phenological event served as the inspiration for this month’s ...Continue Reading
January 2024 – Climate Resolutions
Many of us are beginning the new year by evaluating our lives and identifying changes we want to make in the coming year. There’s a certain humanness in deciding that our clean slate starts at this relatively random point in time, but that doesn’t exclude nature from being included in our fresh start. I want to use this month’s Nature Net News to dig into ways we as individuals can incorporate more climate hope and solutions into our lives. Individual ...Continue Reading
December 2023 – Winter Stargazing
As the year winds down, so does the amount of daylight we have. Each day is getting progressively shorter until we reach the winter solstice, December 21st. If we humans are being completely honest with ourselves, it’s a dark time of year in more ways than one. We are preparing for the long winter ahead and reflecting on our successes but also failures of the year that was. In all of that, it’s hard to find light spots. Fortunately for ...Continue Reading
November 2023 – Red Granite
As our trees are dropping their leaves and the landscape is feeling more bare by the day, there’s a different natural feature whose mark is more visible on our landscape. While overshadowed by towering oaks and dense greenery in the spring and summer months, or blanketed in snow through the winter, Wisconsin red granite, our state rock, stands out in the grays and browns of November. But what exactly is granite and what gives Wisconsin red granite its namesake shade? ...Continue Reading
June 2021 – Fireflies
On a fine June evening, my pre-teen son and I ventured out at sunset to watch the sun go down over Lake Mendota. We found a grassy hill-top view from the iconic Observatory Hill on UW-Madison’s campus and awaited the golden hour. If you regularly track Wisconsin phenology, you might know what happened next. Slowly and quietly the field below us filled with a glittering array of duty-bound fireflies. My son, who moments before was too cool to be seen ...Continue Reading
May 2021 – Birding & Phenology
The International Crane Foundation is reopening soon, with their grand reopening scheduled for May 1st! As many cranes are migratory, moving with the seasons to different breeding and wintering grounds, I thought now would be a great time to think about birding as a means to engage with phenology. Spring is a great time for phenological observation, with so many species changing - plants are blooming, birds are returning from their overwintering locations, and insects are emerging once again (noticing ...Continue Reading
March 2021 – Habitat Restoration
Did you know that much of the greater Midwest was originally wetland and prairie? Today, estimates suggest that only about 1% of the tallgrass prairie that once existed still remains. Loss of this habitat means the loss of all the things that live there. For many, preservation of what is left is not enough. In comes restoration! Fun fact - the Nature Net member University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum is often considered the birthplace of ecological restoration, beginning in 1936 with the restoration of the ...Continue Reading
February 2021 – Gardening, Culture, and Community Resilience
When you think of gardening and growing your own food, do you also think of your cultural heritage, and the deep history attached to using plants to feed one’s family? Maybe today I can convince you that gardening (and foraging!) can be a cultural practice that connects people together through time and space, evoking cultural roots and a deep sense of community belonging that has tied people together for centuries. Maybe I can also show you how urban agriculture and ...Continue Reading
January 2021 – Greenhouses
In temperate areas, the growing season is only so long, and the plants that can be grown are limited by their hardiness in local soils and climates. Enter the greenhouse: using temperature and humidity controls, we can grow nearly any type of plant year-round within glass walls! Greenhouses have been essential in increasing food production as well as in maintaining collections of rare plants from around the world. In the cold of winter, it's amazing to think that plants that ...Continue Reading
December 2020 – Biodiversity
Many biologists believe we are in the midst of a sixth mass extinction on our planet. Pretty scary to think about - but it's not all bad news for the future. Many organizations and individuals are working hard in conservation efforts to support biodiversity and the diverse ecosystems of this planet, and there have been successes! One of the first major biodiversity conservation successes in the United States was the recovery of bald eagle populations after being decimated by DDT. ...Continue Reading