What's Your Nature?

Become a Nature Up North explorer to share your encounters with wild things and wild places in New York's North Country. Post your wildlife sightings, landscape shots, photos from your outings, and even you organization's events!

Just Our Nature

Nature Up North program blog

Consider a Gift to Nature Up North

Huckleberry Lake. Photo by Bill Hill.

Consider a Gift to Nature Up North

Dear friends and neighbors,

It's that time of year again; the snow is flying, the geese have (mostly) left.  Must be time to consider making a contribution to support Nature Up North!  We'd be delighted and appreciative if you made a donation to help environmental education here in the North Country. 

Specifically, your gift will help to support activities such as:

By

Leprechaun Trees

Haw berries. Photo: FreeUsePhotos, Flickr Creative Commons.

Leprechaun Trees

My earliest memory of St. Patrick’s Day is how angry it made my mother, who holds dual Irish-American citizenship and strongly identifies with her Celtic roots. It was not the day itself which got her Irish up, so to speak, but rather the way it was depicted in popular American culture: Green-beer drink specials at the bars and St. Patrick’s Day sales in every store, all endorsed by grinning, green-clad, marginally sober leprechauns.

By

SAD in the Winter: Get Outside and Feel Better

SAD in the Winter: Get Outside and Feel Better

In the midst of a North Country winter, you might be experiencing the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder. You may have low motivation and be tempted to withdraw from social interaction... it might feel like your own personal hibernation. Some people dismiss this as simply “the winter blues”. It might be, but it also may be more than that. Shorter winter days in the North Country result in a decrease in daylight, and low temperatures often keep us confined to the indoors.  

By

Apply to be a Summer Intern!

Apply to be a Summer Intern!

Want to spend the summer in the North Country hiking, meeting new people, and learning about environmental education? We're hiring!

Nature Up North summer naturalist interns are talented, driven undergraduate students with interest in place-based outdoor education. Interns spend the summer developing leadership skills, leading outdoor programs and workshops, and becoming better environmental educators. The Nature Up North Summer Naturalist internship is a full-time 40 hr/week position and includes campus housing and a stipend.  

By

Wild Eats: Tea Time

Homemade tea from eastern white pine needles. Photo: Isabella de Buy Wenniger

Wild Eats: Tea Time

Have you ever wandered through the woods, looked at all the plants surrounding you, and wondered, “are any of these edible?” Good news: there are many species of edible plants found in the wild all around us! With a little knowledge of how to identify and prepare wild edibles, local forests become a bountiful place to explore.

By

Happy Biology

Photo: Flickr Creative Commons, Ehpien

Happy Biology

Happiness may be elusive, but it sure has spawned a lot of aphorisms. Folk-wisdom indicates one can be happy as a pig in poop—or in mud, which makes me wonder if those two hogs are equally content, and if they had other options. It also suggests you can be pleased as a pig in a peach orchard, which would make sense unless harvest season was over. Additionally, one might feel happy as a pup with two tails, a monkey with a peanut machine, or a clam at high tide.

By

Run, Dorothy—Emerald City is Falling

An emerald ash borer beetle on a leaf. Photo: Flickr Creative Commons, USDA

Run, Dorothy—Emerald City is Falling

Watertown is poised to become an Emerald City, but that’s not good news. Jefferson and Lewis will soon be Emerald Counties, and St. Lawrence County began the process of change two years ago. Unfortunately, this kind of transformation does not involve happy endings.

By
Subscribe to Just Our Nature