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!

Six Nature Myths Busted

Here at Nature Up North we hear a lot of great questions about wildlife and the outdoors. Do porcupines really shoot their quills? Will ticks fall on you from trees? What does it mean to be blind as a bat? Will a bird abandon its young if I touch them? To answer these questions, here are six common misconceptions about nature and the truth behind them! Which myths did you believe?

 

Brambleberries: What's the Difference?

It's about that time of year to begin harvesting fruits for jams and desserts.  From July through September, bramble bushes across the North Country will be loaded with red raspberries, black raspberries and blackberries. You may have no trouble recognzing these berries as edible, but can you tell the difference?

A Tale of Nine Lives

 

The two cats at my place have survived many life-threatening traumas such as falls, fights and even the compulsory “devotions” of small children. It’s amazing the hazards they can evade. I think if pets could drive, only dogs would get speeding tickets—cats would always find ways to wriggle out of a citation. Sadly, my contacts in the veterinary field continue to assert that cats have but a single life, and that the whole nine-lives thing is just a cat tale.

Lyme Disease Ecology Part One: A Ticky Situation


All year round we await the North Country summer – when the landscape is green and lush, the days are long, and shorts finally seem like a viable clothing option. In early summer we can easily tolerate a few mosquitos and black flies in exchange for the abundance of outdoor opportunities that our region offers. But over the last decade, Lyme disease has emerged as a serious concern for northern New York residents seeking to enjoy the summer months outdside. 

Pink Mystery

Can anyone help me identify this mysterious pink coloration? Is it a fungus? It looks quite beautiful growing along the veins of these maple leaves, but I'm not sure if it is harmful to the plant.

Conservation Field Day Scavenger Hunt at Indian Creek Nature Center

On June 4th 2015, roughly 70 students from Colton-Pierrepont, Huevelton and Trinity schools came out to spend a day immersing themselves in the natural environment at Indian Creek Nature Center's Conservation Field Day. Each year, 5th and 6th graders from across St. Lawrence County have the opporunity to get the hands-on experience in a variety of field science activities.

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