Category: Cowling Arboretum

With the warmer weather of the past weeks comes the opportunity for new types of outdoor activity. One of these activities, made possible by the slow disappearance of the ice on the Cannon River, is the sport of angling. So to all you fishers out there pick up your bow and arrows and head on out! Bow and arrows you say? Yup bow and arrows.

The sport of archery fishing or bow fishing is one of the fastest growing sports in the nation. The Student Naturalists were introduced to this sport at the end of winter term when they came across a large carp abandoned on the ice next to the imprint of an arrow on the snow. How did it get there? After a bit of guessing we arrived at the natural (or not so natural depending on how you look at it) conclusion, and after a bit of research we gained the whole picture…

While Puxatony Phil predicted six more weeks of winter, this week in Minnesota seems to be defying his prediction and hints of spring abound if you look in the right places.

The Northern Cardinal has been heard and sighted around campus this week.   While the cardinal does not mass migrate south for the winter, it will often vacate a territory due to extreme weather or lack of food (seeds) in the winter.  While this winter has not been as extreme as some in Minnesota, and few cardinals have been sighted in the Arb, feasting on Buckthorn berries, very few have been seen perched and singing around campus!  The males, who are bright red, can often be heard calling from the tops of trees around campus, and they will be quite abundant come May.  Their call could be described as sounding like a squeaker toy or car alarm.   Keep your eyes out for the American Robin as well returning from its winter residence in warmer climes (in Mexico and the Southern US). If you are interested in learning some bird songs headed into spring, try checking out:   http://www.learnbirdsongs.com/ 

Last Friday afternoon, the student naturalists set off with Carleton staff member Gene Bauer in pursuit of some of the arb’s most elusive predators: owls. Birds of prey that are typically nocturnal and solitary hunters, owls are notoriously hard to find. Although we were stymied in our quest for the real thing, we did find plenty of signs that owls are indeed frequenting the arb. Owls advertise their roosting trees by leaving plenty of white “splash” on the branches and the trunk, as well as regurgitated pellets at the base of the tree. These roosting sites can be found in the mixed forests and denser pine plantations of the lower arb. And if you are lucky, you may even spot owl tracks: the feather swoop marks left on the snow where a careless mouse met its demise.

On our Arb Walk last Friday, we had the good fortune of a lot of eager visitors, and a blanket of fresh snow. Abbondanza! Because the snow had fallen only earlier that day, most of the tracks we saw were left by a common daytime ground-frequenter: squirrels!  Don’t let their familiarity fool you, these are exciting wildlife creatures… (more squirrelly excitement after the jump)

The fresh blanket of snow covering the Arb makes it a great time to look for signs of predation! If you dare to venture off the trails, the white backdrop emphasizes scatterings of feathers, fur, and blood that in other seasons are relatively difficult to spot. The following will help you to identify the signs left by three common predators in the Arb… (continued after the jump)

A number of interesting birds have been seen recently in the arb, including the increasingly rare red-headed woodpecker. Bald eagles (two individuals at least) continue to haunt the Cannon, and a red-tailed hawk has been sighted several times in the upper arb and near the Rec Center. If you go for a ski after dark, look for beavers on the ice pack—with their dark fur, they are visible from some distance. Apart from this news, this week’s Arb Notes focuses on a few nonnative plants in the Arboretum which have useful properties. Since these plants should not be here in the first place, they can be harvested guilt-free—but please, be sure of your identification, and tread lightly!

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‘Arb Notes’ is a weekly feature written by the Cowling Arboretum student naturalists. For more information, or with specific questions, please contact Arb Director Nancy Braker or any of the naturalists (names below).

This weekend was a good taste of how cold it can get here in Minnesota, with temperatures dipping into the negative teens.  While this warrants caution in your Arb treks, the new dusting of snow from this past weekend adds a whole new level of fun to Arb adventures!  If you see something interesting or exciting, please let us know!

-There are a multitude of activities that the Arb trails are used for in the winter; skiing, snowshoeing, running, walking. Skis (boots and poles) and snowshoes can be checked out from the Rec Center, conditions permitting.  While we encourage all of these activities we request that Arb-goers use proper trail etiquette. If walking, running, or snowshoeing on a groomed trail, please stay single file to the sides of the trails, and avoid walking in the ski tracks.  The Arb is groomed after each snowfall and on intervals between, but walking in the middle of the trail makes the surface uneven and heavily compacted making skiing difficult. Snowshoers are not restricted to the trails (a great opportunity to explore places you haven’t seen before!).

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Read about Nancy Braker, the new Director of the Cowling Arboretum, here.

If you’d like an opportunity to meet Nancy, she’ll be participating in an ENTS Arb Walk this Thursday. If you’re interested, meet up at the arb trailhead (in front of the Recreation Center) at 4:00 pm. If you can’t make it for the walk, there will be refreshments served in the Arb Office at 5:00 pm.

The Buckthorn Menace, a large scale sculpture installation by artist Jim Proctor, pursues a novel alliance between art and environmental restoration by rendering the wood and roots of the invasive plant species buckthorn into forms resembling gargantuan dandelions in full seed. Constructed on the site of two buckthorn infested areas in Northfield –one in “The Upper Arb” of the Cowling Arboretum and one down slope from the new Science Center at St. Olaf College– this installation is part of a wider community education effort to raise public awareness about the environmental damage caused by buckthorn and other invasive plant species in Minnesota’s natural landscapes and wilderness areas.

This community service project provides a hands-on opportunity to learn about the environmental problems caused by invasive plant species in Minnesota, and to be a part of the only possible solution to those problems – constructive community action!

The installation will stand for a full year to allow viewing over the four seasons. It will be dismantled in October 2008, and the site landscapes restored by the planting of indigenous trees and shrubs.

Project Launch
Carleton College: Thurs., Sept. 20, 5 p.m. 104 Boliou Hall, Speakers: Jim Proctor and Prof. Mary Savina

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