October 7, 2022 by Beth

Exploring Nature with Young Children

Love for the natural world begins when we are very young. Even the smallest of hands-on experiences ignites a child’s natural curiosity and sense of wonder, and these early encounters stay with us. I remember evenings with my mother…sitting on our front steps and listening to her stories about trees, stars, moths and whatever else presented itself. I know the wonder those times created deep inside of me; a reverence and joy I continue to nurture.

Recently, I watched a mom walk with her toddler, stop and lift him up to touch the leaves of a young maple tree, and pluck a leaf for him to carry. Then the little guy spied an ant hill on the sidewalk. He and his mom watched the bustling activity for a few minutes before moving on to explore a boulevard garden.

Seeing them raised memories of giving our son leaves, pinecones, acorns and rocks to hold under our watchful eyes. He loved his “pet caterpillars.” He squeezed the first wooly bear I showed him too hard, but we worked on “gentle touch” and held other caterpillars, baby toads and small frogs. Butterflies also were an early delight, both in the garden and while out hiking.

Each summer we watched American robins, cardinals, house wrens, blue jays and mourning doves nest in our urban yard. Using binoculars, we observed them raise their nestlings in our hedge and apple tree. At the cabin, we saw yellow warblers, American redstarts, Baltimore orioles, bluebirds, woodpeckers and many others. In both locations, bald eagles, red-tailed hawks and herons were common overhead.

Something about those early, joyful experiences stuck with our son. Even now as he studies medicine and has little time outside, he’ll text us about a Cooper’s hawk perched on a fence, a barn swallow nest in a hospital parking ramp, a winter moonrise, or the ducklings and goslings paddling on the creek near his apartment.

If you have children in your life, show them the simple things in nature; there are so many easy activities to enjoy together. Finding rocks, leaves and large seeds is a great place to start. Talk about their shapes, colors and textures. Learn to identify a few of the common trees where you live.

Getting dirty in the garden is great fun for most kids and adults! Plant seeds and tend them together. Carrots, green beans, radishes and marigolds were the first seeds we planted. (We also grew a potted cherry tomato.) We checked for progress everyday, from the first sprout, to buds on beans and marigolds, to harvesting and eating the veggies.

While gardening, watch for butterflies and moths. Large ones, such as monarchs and swallowtails are easy to point out and talk about. If you grow milkweed, dill or parsley in your garden, you may find caterpillars to show children; monarchs on the milkweed and swallowtails on dill, parsley and other plants in the carrot family.

In autumn, take a “leaf walk” together and collect colorful leaves. Some kids enjoy pressing the leaves to make a book of the different types, shapes and colors. Most will enjoy piling up the leaves and jumping in them! While you’re out walking, watch for colorful birds and listen for their songs. Learn about the birds that inhabit your community.

Many children like to create nature journals. When our son was a preschooler, he made simple journals from scrap paper. He drew pictures of dragonflies, bees, birds, flowers, rocks and whatever else in nature caught his interest. He’d dictate a few sentences for me to write about each item until he was old enough to write his own. There are also simple journals that you can buy to record your observations together. We used both the “Bird Log” and “Nature Log” by Adventure Publications. These days there are many more options from which to choose. Here’s a link to a few other nature journals for children.

The early darkness of winter evenings makes it easier to view the night sky. Watch the moon wax and wane from a tiny crescent to a luminous globe and back to a sliver. Point out the brighter planets: Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. If you live away from urban lights, or can drive outside of the city, look at the beautiful Milky Way overhead and at a few of the easier-to-recognize constellations, such as Orion, Canis Major, Gemini and Ursa Major in the Northern Hemisphere. Many children, especially those living in cities, have few opportunities to marvel at a sky full of stars.

During a snowfall, walk together and notice the hush that settles over the land as falling snow muffles all sound. It feels magical, especially at dusk or in the evening. Catch snowflakes on your mittens and point out the variety of their beautiful shapes. A fresh, clean snow is also the perfect opportunity to look for animal tracks, and if the time is right, see the creature who made them! A walk in the woods on a mild winter day reveals the shapes of trees, native grasses and wildflower seed heads. Watch for woodpeckers that stay with us through the long winter and listen for the hooting of owls.

Winter walks are a good time to look for tracks and the creature who made them, like this red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus).

As children grow and continue to learn, we can talk with them about endangered and extinct plants and animals, and what each of us might do, even in small ways, to prevent further loss. To that end, providing youngsters with fun experiences and happy memories of nature can help them connect meaning and joy with the natural environment — and that may create a deeper commitment to caring for our beautiful world.

April 21, 2022 by Beth

Seashore Early Morning

Early morning on a Gulf Coast beach in West Central Florida.

Early on there is the sound of seabirds and surf, the scent of sand and salt with a hint of fish. Steel-blue water surges inward tossing up sea jewels with names like cockle, calico scallop, cat’s paw, coquina and lucina on the sand before it retreats in a quiet hiss.

Willets, sanderlings, terns and other tiny shorebirds race ahead of the surf on their skinny legs. They probe the wet sand for breakfast invertebrates after each retreating wave. In contrast, brown pelicans swoop in soundlessly over the water. One plunges sharply, surfaces with a fish that squirms as the pelican swallows. On shore, a great blue heron stands companionably near a fisherman, waiting for the catch of the day.

Sanderlings (Calidris alba)

Royal terns (Thalasseus maximus)

A few feet from shore, the rising sun lights up sea oxeye daisies, blanket flowers, dune sunflowers, seaside gentians, sea oats, sea grapes and other native plants. They help anchor the dunes and provide habitat for many insects, birds and other creatures.

Seaside gentian (Eustoma exaltatum)

Florida west coast dune sunflower (Helianthus debilis vestitus)

Blanket flower (Gaillardia pulchella)

They are lovely, but it is to the sea that I return; sea and open sky. The rhythmic swoosh and hiss, ebb and flow, lulls, relaxes, and focuses me on this present moment. It is peaceful, joyful, hopeful. A fresh start.

April 19, 2021 by Beth

Early Spring Native Flowers: Bloodroot

Native bloodroot flowers (Sanguinea canadensis) emerge with a single leaf tightly wrapped around each of them. (Notice the early native bee near the top of the photo!)

One of Minnesota’s earliest native wildflowers is bloodroot, (Sanguinea canadensis). Given its name, you might expect a scarlet or crimson flower. In fact, it blooms ice-white with a sun-gold center, though some emerge light pink. They look out of place, so stark and fresh among the remains of last year’s woodland growth and garden detritus. Its name refers to the toxic red-orange sap in the rhizome or root.

Each bloom emerges wrapped in a single curling leaf like a little blanket. The leaf remains curled until the blossom withers and then unfurls into a rounded leaf with a varying number of lobes. The leaves range in color from light green to blue-green depending on the plant’s age and condition. In its natural setting, bloodroot often grows along woodland edges, which provide sun in early spring and shade when the trees leaf out. In my garden, it grows along the edge of an arbor vitae hedge and under an ash tree. With shade and regular watering, bloodroot creates a pretty ground cover that lasts all summer under deciduous trees. If they aren’t watered during summer’s hot, dry spells, bloodroot leaves just go dormant until the following spring.

Sometimes the flowers have a pink coloration when they open.

Native bees, honey bees and beetles pollinate bloodroot, which also can self-pollinate. Fertilized flowers form elongated capsules that enclose spherical seeds colored black, red, or brown. Here’s what’s special about bloodroot seeds: Each produces an elaiosome, an attachment containing lipids, amino acids and other nutrients. Attracted to these nutrients, ants carry the seeds back to their nests and feed the elaiosomes to their larvae. The ants either discard the remaining seed in a separate chamber of their nest, or toss it back out onto the ground. Either way, this process, called myrmecochory, helps ensure that the bloodroot seeds are dispersed for germination. Other spring wildflowers, such as violets, trilliums, hepaticas and Canada wild ginger, also form this mutual relationship with ants.

Ants help disperse the seeds after ripe bloodroot pods split open.

A member of the poppy family, bloodroot is native to much of eastern North America from Nova Scotia south to Florida, west to Manitoba and south to Texas. Native Americans used the plant’s red sap to make paint and to dye clothing, leather and other items. It blooms from March to May in Minnesota woodlands and was one of the first native wildflowers that I identified in the woods at our cabin years ago. The plants in most of these photos grow in our backyard. They hold special meaning for me because they were a gift from my aunt, who grew them under her trees for decades. They remind me of how she nurtured my love for nature when I was young.

Native bloodroot covers a hillside above the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities.

October Yellow (Move Over, Red!)

It’s easy to focus on the “can’t miss” colors of autumn’s oaks and maples. Orange and red dominate October’s landscape. But, look more closely: Yellow’s quiet beauty slowly swells from a few bright pockets of heart-shaped basswood leaves, to entire bluff-sides wrapped in lemon, butter and gold of birch, cottonwood, maple and hickory. Woods that were deeply shadowed and cool green just a few days ago, now glow on a sunny afternoon. The air smells good — earth, ripe seeds and the slightly tangy scent of aging leaves — all part of autumn’s final act before winter spreads its monochrome blanket.

October 9, 2020 by Beth

Thoughts About Dad

Autumn was our dad’s favorite season. This was his last one. He died three weeks ago, when a hint of color tinged the maples and the asters were beginning to bloom. The day before he died, I told him about the chipmunks and squirrels scrambling to stash acorns and walnuts; the zigzag goldenrod glowing in the woods, and bumblebees nectaring in asters along a woodland trail. I read to him essays about autumn by Minnesota naturalist Sigurd Olson whose books he loved.

When I walked an autumn-painted path along the Mississippi River last week, I thought about Dad; how he loved the fiery maples and muted red oaks, the earthy smell of leaves, and the songs and calls of birds. I remembered some of the ways that we shared nature together.

Dad taught us about the natural world a little differently from Mom’s gardening and nature lessons. He taught us to fish on the lakes surrounding Spooner, Wisconsin. We used children’s hand-held red droplines with colorful bobbers that first year. (I keep mine in my tackle box for the memories.) We baited our own hooks, watched our bobbers for nibbles, and learned to gently release the hook from bluegills, pumpkinseeds and other panfish. It wasn’t all fishing, however. We also took side trips into quiet bays where turtles lined up on logs to sun, loons swam with their chicks riding piggyback, and mats of waterlilies floated with their exotic-looking flowers and beautiful leaves. We relaxed in the warm morning sun and watched the blue damselflies that rested on the boat. It was peaceful.

As youngsters, we spent many late-autumn weekend evenings outside. In the 1960s, beautiful vase-shaped American elms towered over our streets like cathedral arches. The whole neighborhood would be outside to rake their yards and burn leaves; each household tended a small fire on their cement apron bordering the alley. We kids ran with friends while our dads tended the burning leaf piles. We stopped and talked at each fire. Stories were told and we looked at the brighter stars and planets as we warmed up by the fire. The scent of burning leaves was aromatic in the brisk air filled with our laughter and chatter.

In later years, Mom and Dad built a cabin on the Snake River in East Central Minnesota. They loved being there during every season of the year. I spent many days with them as a young adult and am grateful to remember so many experiences. Dad loved to stand on the front deck at dusk. Evening songs of wood thrushes, veerys, robins and other birds harmonized with the burbling river running over rocks. He became a birder of sorts. He already could identify many species of ducks and geese. Now he learned to recognize different grosbeaks, thrushes, woodpeckers and warblers. An eagle pair nested nearby and Dad watched the nest year round.

He delighted in the creatures that lived around the cabin; a white-tailed doe and her twin fawns, black bear, a red fox family, buffleheads, mergansers and wood ducks, mink, and snow-white ermine in winter. One autumn evening, an otter popped up onto a boulder with clams. We watched it open the shells, eat its dinner and frolic in the river.

Summer evenings sparkled with fireflies blinking over the marshes, fields and roadsides. Barred owls were regular nighttime visitors as were tiny flying squirrels. Frogs — leopard, green, wood and others — serenaded the night, adding their voices to the songs of nocturnal insects and the river.

Dad lost his vision to glaucoma four years ago. Thanks to Amazon Echo, he continued to read (another passion) by listening to audible books. But there wasn’t a way to replace the loss of seeing nature. He rarely complained about his blindness. Sometimes, I close my eyes and try to imagine his loss and cannot. We kids described all that we saw in nature, and we read to him often. At least he was able to be outside during the summer. He loved the sun’s warmth, the mild breeze, the rustle of leaves, and that we could be with him after the long months of COVID separation.

The week that Dad died was beautiful; golden September sunlight, warm days, mild nights, bumble bees and hummingbirds still busy in the wildflowers and crickets chirping in the garden. How he wished to be sitting in the sun on the cabin’s front deck by the river. As he peacefully slipped away, I hope his thoughts were of blue sky, warm sun, the scent of colorful autumn leaves and the gentle music of the river that he loved so much.

September 29, 2020 by Beth

A Stick isn’t Always a Stick!

This northern walkingstick (Diapheromera femorata) is close to 4 inches long and is most likely a young insect or nymph, which are light green.

The northern or common walkingstick insect is a master of mimicry. Slender, green or brown, nocturnal and timid, it looks like a twig or branchlet. I’ve only spotted a few at our cabin in Central Minnesota over several years’ time. They were brown — except for this one, which was pearly green and sitting on the side of our cabin.

Since they are wingless, slow-moving and don’t bite, northern walkingsticks need some way to elude their predators — mainly songbirds and parasitic insects. They are extraordinary mimics and blend in perfectly with tree branchlets and twigs. Unless you spot them crawling, or they roost on a building or another object, it’s very difficult to see them. Males are brown and about three inches long. Females are greenish brown and closer to four inches in length.

So what do walkingsticks do? They are primarily nocturnal and rest during the day extending their front legs forward next to their antennae, which makes them appear more sticklike. At night they eat! The larval stages eat leaves of shrubs that are close to the ground, especially hazel, rose, blueberry and serviceberry. Adults feed in the tops of trees and appear to favor oaks, basswood, black locust and black cherry. When eating, they often sway like the leaves and branches around them, which provides greater camophlage.

Walkingsticks fold their front legs straight forward, next to their antennae, to appear more sticklike.

Northern walkingsticks mate in the afternoon and evening from late summer to mid-autumn. The female lays her eggs from high up in the trees. The eggs just drop to the ground to overwinter in the leaves. In the south, the eggs hatch the following spring. In the northern states and provinces, there’s a two-year cycle in which the eggs don’t hatch until the second spring. So, in Minnesota, the odd-numbered years produce many young and the even-numbered years produce fewer insects. The newly hatched larvae, or nymphs, climb up into shrubs where they molt several times before reaching adulthood. They are miniatures of their parents, but are green like new spring leaves.

We have just one species of walkingstick in Minnesota — it lives in the eastern United States and the southern portions of adjacent Canadian provinces. Most of the world’s 3000 stick insects live in the tropics.

Summer Afternoon Country Walk

The scent of sweet clover, insect songs and heat ride the wind along this country road.

The farm road near our cabin is bright, hot and breezy on high-summer afternoons. Musical chirps, metallic clicks and shrill whines of crickets, grasshoppers and cicadas wash over the fields. At mid-August, bird song is minimal — a few call, but do not sing. Most vocal are American goldfinches, with their lilting calls and flight. There are eastern bluebirds and an eastern kingbird. A broad-winged hawk circles a few times whistling its high, quavering note.

The dairy farmer who owns these fields, borders them with several feet of perennials — common milkweed, red clover, rabbit-foot clover, monarda, native sunflowers, blue vervain and goldenrod. Not only do these swaths of plants help stop runoff and pollution into the nearby Snake River, they also support bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Today, painted ladies, monarchs, eastern-tailed blues, yellow sulfurs, cabbage whites and mourning cloaks zip quickly through the hot, sunny air. Painted ladies dominate the aerial dance. Dozens swoop and swirl around us in the roadside flowers, and fly up from the wet, sandy road where they drink water and minerals.

Painted ladies (Vanessa cardui) nectar on prairie fleabane (Erigeron strigosus) in the field borders, which are critical habitat for many forms of wildlife.

Common milkweed (Asclepius syriaca), a crucial source of nectar for monarchs and other pollinators, borders fields of corn and soybeans.

The road winds into groves of hardwoods along the river. Red and white oak, basswood, willow and silver maple shade the road and lower the air temperature by several degrees. Now goldfinches are accompanied by the nasal “yank-yank” call of white-breasted nuthatches, scrappy blue jays and the gurgling calls of tiny black-capped chickadees. The woods are much cooler, still lush and green with ferns, river grapes, Canada ginger, false Solomon’s seal, and the ripening green-blue berries of sarsaparilla. Mushrooms pop up in shady, damp areas and I spot russulas, white puffballs, bracket fungi and others whose identity I don’t know.

Oaks, basswood, and maples arch over the road along the Snake River. Their shade refreshes us on this sultry afternoon.

Ferns and Canada ginger (Asarum canadense) flourish with oaks near the river.

Russala mushrooms are bright spheres against green moss.

The week’s thunderstorms raised the river more than a foot. Water burbles and tumbles over rocks and riffles. Ospreys, eagles and belted kingfishers frequently fish these waters. I hear the kingfisher’s rattle offset by the more plaintive calls of the larger birds of prey.

Water tumbles over river rocks and creates a bubbling melody.

A bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), clutching its fishy catch, perches momentarily in a riverside silver maple.

We leave the woods and river once again and return to the hot August sun and breeze. I close my eyes and stand quietly. The wind ripples fields of hay, soybeans and field corn. It smells so good — ripe grain and grass, damp earth and sweet clover. I memorize the scents, sounds and heat of high summer. I will hold them close when the inevitable winter returns.

Native black-eyed Susan’s (Rudbekia hirta) spring up along most country roads in August.

White sweet clover (Melilotus Albus) scents the air along the road.

Wind, sun and insect song create a peaceful setting along a rural road in Central Minnesota.