Wild Turkeys: The Truth Behind the Bird
November 23, 2022On Thursday, Americans of all shapes, sizes and colors gather around tables overflowing with colorful cornucopias of food. And whether that table includes cranberry sauce or couscous, tortellini or tortillas, the centerpiece of the meal is likely that quintessential American bird, the turkey.
Consider that turkey, one of our biggest natural neighbors. Likely one of your holiday plates includes an image of the tom turkey, chest all puffed out, strutting its stuff. That's not how turkeys appear in November. Sleeker, thinner, turkeys are now forming winter single-sex flocks, a tom and its brothers joining a fraternal order of other males.…
Those Autumn Leaves – Leaf Them Alone!
November 8, 2022Autumn is many people’s favorite time of year, with leaves changing color and the weather becoming crisp, but not yet overly cold.
Autumn also ushers in one of our least favorite chores: Raking leaves. But before you start bagging all those leaves up for curbside pickup, two thoughts to consider.
First, those leaves are loaded with the exact perfect combination of nutrients your lawn needs to grow beautifully thick and green. One of the ironies of the season is those of us with lawns feverishly remove every speck of leaf from the lawn—and then spend too much money on fertilizer,…
Deadly Fungi
October 24, 2022According to the Poison Control Center at CHOP, there have been 11 wild mushroom poisoning cases in the last month. While this may seem alarming, severe mushroom poisonings are rare. In our area, there are only a handful of species that will cause life threatening illness or death. These species include: Funeral Bells, Destroying Angels, and Gyromitra korfii. A few others are known to cause severe discomfort and GI distress including Jack-o-Lanterns and the Vomiter.
Here are some FAQs about mushroom safety that everyone should know:
All mushrooms are safe to touch and must be ingested to cause illness of…
Wildlife Clinic is temporarily closed
September 19, 2022Unfortunately, our Wildlife Clinic is temporarily closed and not accepting new patients.
If you have an animal that is contained, contact your local PA wildlife rehabilitation center. The Pennsylvania Association of Wildlife Rehabilitators also maintains a list of wildlife rehabilitators across the state.
Wilderz Wildlife in Willow Grove, the Aark Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center in Bucks County, or Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research in Delaware.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
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The Now-Endangered Monarch Butterfly
July 27, 2022[caption id="attachment_275332" align="alignright" width="169"] Monarch caterpillar on a milkweed plant outside our front door[/caption]
When one worries about nature, the world is so much like a Springsteen song, one step up and two steps back.
One step up: the Schuylkill Center’s staff have seen multiple monarch butterflies and their caterpillars in and around the center recently, many of them right outside the Visitor Center’s front door. This beats several recent years when there were few-- if any-- sightings of the Halloween-colored insect. For butterfly lovers like me, it’s been a great week for monarchs. In fact, only hours before I…
Two Great Summer Flowers: Monarda and Milkweed
June 20, 2022
If you come to the front door of the Visitor Center this week, two extraordinary-- and extraordinarily important-- flowers are waiting to greet you, two flowers you should not only know, but plant in your own yards.
The bright blossoms of Monarda, commonly known as bee balm, greet you first, their scarlet red flowers simply impossible to miss. Can a flower ever get more red than this?! That color is a clear signal as to who pollinates it, as hummingbirds are highly attracted to red flowers. Also, check out the long floral tubes, specifically evolved to allow a hummingbird to…
An update on the Center’s Boy Scout Tract (8/30/22)
June 13, 2022[caption id="attachment_275242" align="aligncenter" width="600"] An aerial photo of the Boy Scout Tract, showing the Higher Ground church on Eva Street on the right and a 19th-century home on the left. Green Tree Run flows across the bottom of the photo.[/caption]
August 30, 2022
We announced two months ago that we were exploring the potential sale of 24 acres of land to fund a number of transformational, once-in-a-generation initiatives among them: investing in our staff who bring the Center and the land to life, education programs, and aging infrastructure including our wildlife clinic, the only rehabilitation facility in the City. Unfortunately,…
Toadlet Time!
June 6, 2022
San Juan Capistrano might have its famous return of migrating swallows and turkey vultures might return to roost every Ides of March in Hinckley, Ohio, but neither town has anything over Roxborough.
For Roxborough has the annual return of American toads. And the toad’s life cycle hit a big milestone last week.
Each spring, thousands of hibernating toads awaken from their hibernating places deep under the Center’s forest leaf litter. When they do, they want to move to water, as their instinctual pull is to mate right away, and toads, residents of the forest during summer and fall, lay eggs…
Spring Processional: Adventures in the Outdoors
June 1, 2022[caption id="attachment_275145" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Naturalist and author Craig Newberger with a hitchhiking praying mantis.[/caption]
It’s the first day of June, with the spring season in full flower-- pun totally intended. Want to know what you might do to more fully experience nature now? Simple. Grab a copy of “Spring Processional,” a hot-off-the-press book by local naturalist Craig Newberger, where you’d learn now is the time to see horseshoe crabs mating on the Delaware Bay and the first meadow wildflowers blooming.
He’s recently retired as the Lower School science coordinator for the Germantown Academy in Fort Washington, a position he held…
Wood Thrush: The Pavarotti of our Forests
May 16, 2022
When I got out of my car at the Center last Thursday morning, I was immediately greeted by one of the happiest sounds of the forest: the melodic church-organ voice of the wood thrush. A very close cousin of the uber-common robin, the wood thrush is one of the most important birds you should introduce yourself to as quickly as possible.
And a simple walk on our trails or along the Wissahickon should help you accomplish that.
A migrant, the wood thrush has only recently returned from its winter haunts in Central and South America. So its call is one…
