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Nancy and the Arb Crew are hard at work this summer. Here’s an update on what they’re working on!
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If you’ve spent any time in the Arb this winter, you’ve likely seen a dark-eyed junco (Junco hyemalis). If not, you’ve undoubtedly heard one—a call often described as a high, smacking ‘stip’ emerging from the ground below stands of dense vegetation. One of the most common birds during the winter months in Minnesota, juncos are at first glance the least worthy of a column in the Carletonian—common, drab, begging for an yawn-inspiring article.
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Winter colors of the Arb
I have been hearing some gripes and grumblings lately, alleging that this midwinter is “bleak.” Really? Cold it might be, but especially in the Arb, there is nothing charmless or dreary about the midwinter landscape. Our winter white blanket is returning as I write this, but even its brief, muddy, puddled hiatus left much to be appreciated and hoped for.
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It is Sunday night, around eleven or eleven thirty, and the short walk from Davis Hall to the library seems to take forever, weighted down as I am with a bag full of books. Preoccupied with dread of those books I do not at first realize what I am hearing. Crows. Wait…Crows? There throaty cries sound strange and unfamiliar in the darkness and I look up. My eyes search the darkness until, suddenly, I see it; the silent cause of all that ruckus, flying out of the pine trees that line the driveway behind Leighton. “Owl!” I yell.
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Last week a 3 day cold spell saw Northfield wind chills reach as low as -40º F and -50º F. Such temperatures make walking across the street a chore and test the patience of many. But air that cold has a quality to it; it dresses the world in a kind of foreignness that offers us the rare chance to see our most familiar surroundings entirely anew. To me that opportunity is not so different from the opportunites I see in the environmental and sustainability movements.
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Beavers are afoot. Last week Arboretum Director Nancy Braker took the student naturalists on a walk along Spring Creek between Bell Field and the Upper Arb. The highlight of the trip was the discovery of a pile of sticks beneath the surface of Spring Creek. The pile of sticks that we discovered is the remnant of a beavers’ winter food stash.
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It is snowy and quite cold these days in the Arb, and not all of the animals are present or active. However, white-tailed deer are as common in the winter as they are in the summer.
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It’s getting chilly outside, but the Arb is heating up! Though the ground will be frozen and the trees will be naked, the Arb will be far from dormant this winter. Ever-Green Energy will be collecting the brush piles from the Arb to generate energy through their combined heat and power facility in St. Paul—electricity is going to be generated through the Arb’s waste.
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We arb naturalists have been excited to see the migratory waterfowl moving through lately. Some of these birds are only around campus for as little as two weeks as they head north for the summer. Some highlights from our recent waterfowl expedition include: hooded mergansers (a personal favorite), common mergansers, lesser scaups, coots, redheads, canvasbacks, gadwalls, goldeneyes, buffleheads, ring billed gulls and a flock of about 40 pelicans! In the past few days the campus has also welcomed back cormorants, black sea birds that breed up north here. They’ve been spotted on Lyman Lakes—in the water they resemble the profile of a loon but swim with their head tilted back a bit. If you are trying to learn to identify birds by their voice, then cormorants will pose a problem—they are largely silent (unlike the Canada Geese that have come back as well) though they apparently make pig-like noises when nesting. Get out and see these birds before they leave! Good spots to look are the retention pond below the Rec, and the turtle pond in the lower arb.
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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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