Tag: Thursday night live
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…
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…
The Lenape and the Land
November 1, 2021[caption id="attachment_273318" align="aligncenter" width="650"] A typical Lenape village, with wigwams, the Lenape name for their homes.[/caption]
Pennsylvania school kids are still mistakenly taught that our state’s history begins in 1681 with William Penn and the naming of our state, Penn’s Woods. Of course, the land already had a name, Lenapehoking, and it was hardly new: for some 10,000 years before William Penn, the Lenape inhabited Lenapehoking.
On Thursday evening, November 4 at 7:00 p.m., in celebration of Native American Heritage Month, we will present “The Lenape and the Land,” a free virtual conversation among three members of the Lenape Nation…
The Amazing Monarch Migration: A Status Report
October 18, 2021[caption id="attachment_273343" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] How are this year’s monarch’s doing? Join us and National Monarch expert Dr. Chip Taylor for our free, virtual event to find out.[/caption]
The monarch butterfly, that large insect perfectly decked out for Halloween-- or a Flyers game-- in its orange and black cloak, undergoes one of the most extraordinary migrations in the animal kingdom. Butterflies across America and even Canada.
The monarch butterfly defies logic, for embedded in a small collection of nerve cells generously called a brain is a GPS directing the insect to fly from Roxborough all the way to a mountain valley…
Goldenrods and the Last Chance Cafe
October 4, 2021[caption id="attachment_273322" align="aligncenter" width="1242"] Goldenrods, an autumn bloom, are one of the last sources of nectar and pollen before winter.[/caption]
As summer slides into fall, a wonderful transformation begins happening in meadows across the area—summer flowers give way to classic autumn blossoms like goldenrod and asters. These are hugely important plants, as they represent the very last shot that thousands of species of insects have for pollen and nectar before winter settles in.
For bees and butterflies, a goldenrod field is essentially their Last Chance Cafe.
There’s a great example of this here at the Schuylkill Center. At the corner…
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