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!
Red maple flowers
Happy Earth Day! The red maples are in full bloom - it is easy to forget that some of our trees are flowering plants - they flower before they leaf out, which presumably give the wind-dispersed pollen a chance to move more easily. Very lovely.
Giant water bug migration
Encountered this (alive) giant water bug as I was leaving campus at about 10 pm. These insects hibernate in the leaf litter during the winter and then emerge and migrate back to the water where they are fierce aquatic predators (but not to be feared by humans). Nice to see that this one hadn't been squished. I hope it makes it!
Common Loon Presentation at Paul Smiths College VIC
Dr. Nina Schoch from the Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation will be presenting an overview of Common Loon history in the Adirondacks at Paul Smiths College VIC (8023 NY-30, Paul Smiths, NY 12970) on September 7, 2019 at 1:00pm. Dr. Schoch will also speak about the positive work the Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation is doing for the Adirondack Park and surrounding areas. This presentation is free to the public. Please contact us at 518-354-8636 or email info@adkloon.org if you have any questions about this presentation.
Porcupine enjoying spring
Enjoying some time on the trails and ran across this porcupine enjoying the warm weather and nice breeze.
First daffodil!
First day our daffodils opened! I've been watching them all week and thought they might open yesterday, but today was the day. Along with the peepers, this proves to me that spring is really here*.
*even if it snows later
Big Night for Herps (Amphibians, Frogs, and Reptiles!)
Here are a few photos that were recently posted on NUN's instagram and facebook to highlight Big Night for New York's Herps!
Click through to learn more!
Lead-backed Salamander
The day was rainy, cloudy and overcast, and around 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The time of day was around 2:00, and I was herping with my Herpetology class for lab on the Kip Tract trail by St. Lawrence University. This Lead-Back was under a soft, rotting log that I had overturned.
Eastern Red-backed Salamander
The SLU Herpetology class spent a rainy lab period flipping over logs in search of salamanders. I finallly found this eastern red-back (Plethodon cinereus) under one of the last logs I flipped -- a small moss-covered one beside a small, half-frozen vernal pool, in a stand of white cedar and eastern hemlock.
Leadback Salamander on Kip Trail
During Herpetology we went looking for various herps. After a long lab period in the rain, I finally found a leadback salamander (Eastern Redback without the red stripe) under a log off the Kip Trail.
Sunny Day on the Artificial Wetland
For an ecology class, my group is looking at the role of seed-predation in relation to distance to water. We are doing our project on St. Lawrence University's artificial wetland and Saturday was a really perfect end to day. We didn't find a difference between the seeds that were closer to the water being eaten or the ones further away for this particular day! Added some photos to show how nice a day this really was, especially with the river no longer being flooded from all of the recent rain.