Author: news
Bird above, wildflowers below
April 16, 2012By Executive Director Mike Weilbacher
Nature’s wildflower parade continues!
On a walk along our Ravine Loop last Saturday, the forest was awash in colors. While bloodroot is finished and done for the season, the cheerful caps of trout lily (below, right) poked through masses of Virginia bluebells. Two species of trillium, one a deep wine red, the other a
[caption id="attachment_207" align="alignleft" width="300"] White trillium[/caption]
bright white (left), also enlivened the forest floor.
We’ll be heading out this next Saturday at 8:30 a.m. to search for these—and other!—flowers. The walk, “Warblers and Wildflowers,” will have us looking two directions at…
From tailess to tail in a matter of hours…
March 27, 2012[caption id="attachment_187" align="alignleft" width="200"] "Imping" a Cooper's hawk's damaged tail[/caption]
Last week the staff of the wildlife clinic did something remarkable, especially for those of us who make our living working at a desk. They rebuilt a bird's tail.
The bird in question, a Cooper’s hawk, was brought into the clinic in February with multiple injuries, including head trauma and a severely damaged tail. The clinic nursed the bird for several weeks as it recovered from a concussion and regained its strength. The bird’s tail feathers, however, were still in tatters, preventing proper flight. As I learned from our clinic director,…
The Race is on: Flowers vs. Trees!
March 24, 2012[caption id="attachment_160" align="alignright" width="300"] The delicately pink-striped Spring Beauty[/caption]
It’s springtime in a forest: an ancient race between trees and flowers.
Here’s the deal: as spring comes to a forest, the trees are still naked and bare-branched, allowing streaming sunlight to strike—and warm!—the forest floor. Warmed by the sun’s rays, underground roots send up this year’s shoots and flowers, the fresh flowers giving pollinators like native bees, also waking up just now, their first taste of nectar in the new season.
[caption id="attachment_163" align="alignleft" width="200"] Virginia Bluebells, three colors in one flower![/caption]And as the flower is pollinated, it makes the…
Tallamy Tabbed to Give the Inaugural Dick James Lecture
March 1, 2012The Schuylkill Center's founding director
Founding director. Outstanding teacher. Sharp wit. Leader. Acclaimed meteorologist. Radio and TV personality. Give Dick his due: he was a force to be reckoned with for decades.
To honor his accomplishments and reconnect to his legacy, the Schuylkill Center happily announces the establishment of the annual Richard L. James lecture. This year’s inaugural edition will be held Thursday, March 8 at 7:30 p.m. at the Cathedral Village auditorium.
Dr. Doug Tallamy, professor of entomology and author of the remarkable “Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants,” provides a visually compelling slide…
Those cute little baby bunnies and birds are tougher than you think…
February 16, 2012
“Baby animals fall out of trees all the time. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they need rescuing." -- Wildlife rehabber and clinic director, Rick Schubert
Spring is our wildlife clinic’s busy season, as the wildlife baby boom hits, and people bring in baby birds that have fallen from nests or bunnies seemingly abandoned in their backyard. Out of the over 12,000 phone calls the clinic handles in a year, hundreds involve questions or concerns about baby animals being orphaned. That's more spring babies than our clinic-- or most similar clinics, I'd imagine-- can treat onsite. The good news is, many of these "orphans" really don't…
A Thanksgiving Tale
November 17, 2011[caption id="attachment_123" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="The wildlife clinic is caring for this sick turkey"][/caption]
By Naomi Leach, Marketing and PR Coordinator
As the gobble, gobble holiday approaches, at least one turkey has reason to give thanks, to the staff at the Schuylkill Center’s Wildlife Rehab Clinic, who are working hard to save its life. The turkey was brought into the clinic Wednesday injured and very sick. Clinic staff are working to rehydrate and feed the emaciated bird and evaluate its condition, with the hope of eventually releasing it back into the wild.
The story began with a call to the clinic…
A ‘Grate’ Day: Steel & The Schuylkill Center
August 2, 2011Last week, I got to do something few people are given the opportunity to do. I got to see the guts of a steel plant up close and personal! Our friends at ArcelorMittal provided us with a guided tour of the international corporation's Conshohocken facility - just down river from our own organization. I was there with two similarly giddy co-workers, our Director of Land & Facilities and his Assistant, to pick up a custom machined well cover from the plant’s fabrication shop.
What in the world, you ask, does ArcelorMittal and the international steel industry have to do with the Schuylkill Center? As it turns…
Saving Animals: The Coolest Thing We Do
June 30, 2011By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
The Schuylkill Center does a lot of exceptionally cool things: we teach thousands of people, protect hundreds of acres of habitat.
But just maybe the coolest thing we do is save animals. Lots and lots of animals.
Yesterday, WMMR’s Pierre Robert was given the honor of releasing a snapping turtle—a remarkably ancient predator—into the Schuylkill River, the same turtle he brought to our Wildlife Clinic almost 14 months ago. After 14 months of TLC—at great cost to the center—the world is richer by one turtle.
[caption id="attachment_61" align="alignleft" width="200"] Pierre and Thomas Share a Parting…
‘Facts and Fables: Stories of the Natural World’ Art Exhibit Explores Our Experiences with Nature
June 22, 2011[caption id="attachment_43" align="alignleft" width="300"] Opening Reception: June 25th 4pm-7pm[/caption]
"In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we have been taught. " - Baba Dioum
Stories normalize the strange and explain the confounding. Our relationship with the environment is in a state of constant flux, and as an environmental education center, we are always updating how and what we teach about the natural world. As our ways of seeing the world develop, the stories we believe in evolve and expand. Our relationship to our stories is tenuous,…
Growing a Bumper Crop of Butterflies
June 16, 2011By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
I love it when a plan works: walking up the back steps at my home this week, I glanced at the large pots where we keep our kitchen garden. What caught my eye was a bump on the end of a sprig of dill: a hunchbacked but handsomely striped insect, the unmistakable caterpillar of the black swallowtail, one of our largest, most striking butterflies.
But wait! A smaller lump below the caterpillar on another leaf was actually a second one. Then I spotted a third. Wait, there are six. No ten. Omigosh: I am the…
