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!
Full Moon Night Hike--Azure Mountain--A Midsummer's Night Gleam
A Midsummer's Night Gleam? Join Nature up North for a guided night hike on July 22nd during the full moon and witness the night time beauty of the North Country from the moonlit peak of Azure Mountain!
We will hike up Azure, enjoy the moonlight from the peak's beautiful cliffs and fire tower, and descend at 9:50PM.
Please be aware that any night hike is strenuous even if very short! Azure Mountain is only 2 miles round trip though it is very steep and may be slippery.
The Annual North Country Goose Roundup
Come join us as Nature Up North teams up with the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) for this year's roundup! Each year, at the end of June, Canada Geese lose their flight feathers during the seasonal molt and are flightless for anywhere from twenty to forty days. During this time, researchers take advantage to survey the geese in hopes of better tracking their numbers and migration patterns. Come help us corral in geese by canoe or on foot and enjoy a tasty barbecue meal after our efforts.
Grow Food Not Lawns
The rabbits are eating my new strawberry plants! I bought a six pack of plants at the Potsdam Farmer's Market on Saturday. I just put them in the ground yesterday and they are already getting nibbled. The hanging baskets I planted earlier in the spring are doing well and are out of reach for now. Hopefully my makeshift scarecrow will do the job of protecting them...
I'll try to get a picture of the sneaky (though cute!) little buggers if they come around again!
Morning encounter with a snapping turtle
Mama snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina) laying eggs! Females like to nest within 100 feet of water (the Little River was not far away) and in sandy or loamy soils. Snapping turtles are easily recognizable by their size, their long tail, and the jagged, saw-tooted rear edge of their upper shell (you can just make it out in this picture). They also have very powerful jaws which could easily crunch a finger or two. I gave this little lady plenty of space!
Friends and Foes Found by the Canoe Shack
There had been a dry spell in the North Country, and a warm one at that, perfect for celebrating the end of a long and snowy spring semester with some "studying" at St. Lawrence University. The growers all around are worried about their parched veggies as they run around with sloshing buckets and hissing hoses. The students are worried about their papers, their exams, their departing friends as they lay out in the fresh sunlight or take procrastination trips to the ice cream stand. It's all very delightful in that teeth grinding way for everyone accept me, the visiting alumni.
Carnivorous Bog Plant - "Sarracenia sp."
Carnivorous pitcher plant ("Sarracenia sp.") growing amidst "Sphagnum" moss in an ombrotrophic (rain-water fed), positive-relief, palustrine wetland system (i.e., a bog) in the northern Adirondacks.
Green frog
This guy (note yellowish throat- breeding color) was sitting in the middle of the trail at 6:15 am hoping to have his photo taken.
Spring, finally!
The most beautiful evidence that spring is here!