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 your organization's events!
Just Our Nature Posts
Earth Day 7K Recap
By Jacob Malcomb on
Blog: Just Our NatureBreezy spring weather greeted the 62 runners and walkers who attended the first annual Nature Up North – St. Lawrence Land Trust Earth Day 7K on Saturday, April 23rd in Canton. The 7 kilometer (4.4mi) course connected the Kip and Saddlemire Trails on the St. Lawrence University campus, passing through scenic forests, fields, and wetlands along the Little River. Racers met mostly dry trail…
What Causes Maple Decline?
By Jacob Malcomb on
Blog: Just Our Nature
As the 2016 maple sugaring comes to a close, many Northern New York maple producers are calling it a good year. The sap ran early – some local producers report boiling their first batch in late January – and kicked up again in March and early April, leading to solid yields across the region. But even as we celebrate a successful maple season, recent research calls into question the vitality of…
Citizen Science in the North Country
By Lizz Muller on
Blog: Just Our NatureOn a snowy morning in April, students in Suzanne Creurer's seventh grade Technology class at Canton Central School took a field trip into the woods. Their destination was the maple tree grove, and their purpose was citizen science (citizen science relies on the general public to collect data about the natural world for scientific research). As a group, they work with Nature Up North on the…
What is Citizen Science?
By Jane Eifert on
Blog: Just Our Nature After a long North Country winter few sights and sounds are more welcome than signs of spring – the year’s first blooming crocus, the call of a red-winged blackbird, a chorus of spring peepers. Many of us post Facebook photos of daffodils and rivers rushing with snowmelt as a celebration of the seasons changing. But what if our observations of the natural world could also be useful to science? …
Warm Up the Organs to Make Music
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureEvery spring, Mother Nature takes the choir out of the freezer. And sometimes, this year for example, she pops them back in for a while. The choir to which I refer is that all-male horde of early-spring frogs: spring peepers, wood frogs, and chorus frogs. Even while an ice rind still clings to the pond edges, untold numbers of these guys roust themselves from torpor to sing for female attention.…
Lisbon Primitive Snowshoe Biathlon 2016
By Anna Hughes on
Blog: Just Our NatureOn a clear late-winter day a man walks through a birch forest, his ash-framed snowshoes crunching over the crusty snow. Swinging by his side is his shooting pouch holding black powder, and in his left hand is a flintlock muzzleloader. He stops, takes out his black powder and loads the rifle while eyeing up the nearby targets. As he aims there is a brief pause as if everything in the woods held…
Forest Succession: A Living Symphony
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureSenescence is the decline in vigor that happens to all creatures great and diminutive as they close in on the life expectancy of their species. People my age suddenly find they require reading glasses to see the phone book. Though I suppose by definition anyone still using a phone book is old enough to need glasses, right?
The onset of this process varies—you probably know of families whose…
The Shades of March: A Photo Blog
By Lizz Muller on
Blog: Just Our NatureTransitions between seasons often seem drab and monotonous. The glistening snow and ice sculptures of winter are left behind, and summer's vibrant palette has not yet arrived. But beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and March has more to give then it might seem. Patches of green can be spotted nestled in the thawing ground, and melting ice leaves reflective mirrors in its place. Spring is a…
Snowbirding in St. Lawrence County: the Balmy Winter of 2016
By Alexander K. Stewart on
Blog: Just Our Nature
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to retire and become a snowbird—move south for the winter, maybe Florida or South Carolina, dodge the winter bullet? Heck, some of you might be reading this from those warmer climes, wondering about the winter you missed out on.
In short, we’re coming out of the 2nd warmest winter on record.
Well, for those of you wondering about snowbirding your…
The Wonders of Wool
By Lizz Muller on
Blog: Just Our Nature
Driving through St. Lawrence County, no matter what time of year, it's not uncommon to see herds of livestock along the roadsides. The strong speckled bodies of cows stand together in groups, their hooves barely denting the frozen ground beneath them. Sheep gather around mounds of hay, some of them practically camouflaged under the piles of snow that accumulate on their backs.
Most North…