Author: news
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…
Nature’s Companions
May 2, 2022[caption id="attachment_275033" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Visitors interacting with artwork by Maria Dumlao, Installation view Companions, Schuylkill Center, 2022. Photographer: Ricky Yanas[/caption]
Cultures and communities define themselves through food. ‘You are what you eat’ is both an adage about nutrition and a reflection on food as an integral part of our social identity. But what these foods are, in turn, is defined by species that live and grow in our landscapes and by foreign relatives—plants, animals, people—that migrate and travel around the globe.
The Schuylkill Center’s newest art exhibition explores how we, as individuals and as a community, define ourselves at home—through…
Restoring our Forests: A Town Meeting
April 25, 2022[caption id="attachment_275013" align="aligncenter" width="600"] White-tailed deer are just one of many issues compromising the future of our forests.[/caption]
Walk into the Center’s forest-- or any forest in the region-- and you’ll notice a habitat filled with invasive plants. The bright yellow flowers of lesser celandine, while beautiful, carpet the forest floor right now. Devil’s walking stick, every inch of it converted by thorns, are shooting up in massive clusters. Garlic mustard is in full flower, its leaves being munched on by the caterpillars of cabbage white butterflies, an invasive non-native butterfly-- and often the first butterfly we see in the…
Bird Safe Philly: Helping Migrating Birds on their Journey North
April 18, 2022[caption id="attachment_275001" align="aligncenter" width="500"] A common yellowthroat, one of the many species of migrating birds passing over the city. This one collided with a plate glass window, but happily was only dazed, brought to the Wildlife Clinic, treated, and released-- a conservation success story.[/caption]
It's migration season and millions of birds are right now pouring over the city of Philadelphia on their way to northern nesting grounds. A river of warblers, flycatchers, shorebirds, hummingbirds, thrushes, and more are heading to their ancestral mating grounds.
And Bird Safe Philly, a new partnership, hopes to make their travels safer. Birds colliding with…
Bicycling with Butterflies
April 11, 2022[caption id="attachment_274978" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Author, educator, and "butterbiker" Sara Dykman observes a monarch sipping nectar on goldenrod during her epic 10,201-mile bike trip as she followed the butterfly's migration.[/caption]
Sara Dykman did something that no other human on this planet has ever done, or even thought to do. In 2017, she followed the entire migration route of monarch butterflies from their overwintering spot in Mexican mountains, north to Canada as far as monarchs go, and back to Mexico. Over a full year, she followed the butterflies.
On a bicycle. By herself. Logging 10,201 miles, to be exact. (That’s only like…
Snakes, Turtles, and Toads, Oh My!
April 4, 2022[caption id="attachment_274929" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Why did the box turtle cross the road? Likely to lay her eggs, Bernard "Billy" Brown says.[/caption]
While Philadelphia is a big, old, well-developed urban area, one of its many surprises is the abundant wildlife found not just in natural places like the Wissahickon, the Schuylkill Center, the John Heinz refuge, and more, but tucked into the many nooks and crannies across the city. Especially surprising might be the large number of reptiles and amphibians living alongside us as our natural neighbors.
One of our city’s most engaging naturalists, Bernard “Billy” Brown, will introduce you to…
The Unraveling of the Red Knot
March 28, 2022
The red knot is one of the region’s most extraordinary birds, facing one of conservation's biggest threats, but sadly flies under the radar of too many people. Too few of us have heard of the knot and fewer still know its story. But on Thursday, March 31 at 7:00 p.m, we'll offer you a unique opportunity to dive into this incredible story.
A nine-inch-long sandpiper with a terra cotta belly, the red knot makes one of migration’s longest runs, flying 9,300 miles each spring from Tierra del Fuego at the bottom tip of South America to nest above the…
