Northfield is in full color: blue phlox and false-rue anemone are in bloom, the wild plums are on display and hundreds of brightly-colored tropical birds are finding a temporary home in the Cowling Arboretum. Warblers are pint-sized songbirds that belong to the family Parulidae. Most are neotropical migrants, traveling every…
Sydney Marie Jones
On February 2, Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his burrow in a sunny Pennsylvania town. His prediction: six more weeks of cold fronts and snow flurries. Three weeks later and a thousand miles from Pennsylvania, groundhogs in the arboretum are at the tail end of a long winter spent below ground. …
Carleton’s Kettle Hole Marsh sits alongside a trail through the prairie in the Lower Arboretum. The marsh, now covered in ice and cattails, is about 10,000 years in the making. Its story begins at the time of Minnesota’s last glaciation. About 15,000 years ago, an ice sheet covered most of…
Earlier this month, the Minnesota chapter of the Nature Conservancy released a report on the state of the climate crisis in Minnesota. While the data are startling—in fifty years, Minnesota summers will likely feel like those of Kansas today—the report also offers hope. Specifically, it outlines 13 natural climate solutions…
By now, the tamaracks have turned a bright orange and the yellow-rumped warblers have flown south. With a 5:00 pm sunset and snow in the forecast, the Arboretum is on the brink of winter. As snakes and frogs prepare for hibernation in rodent burrows and old stumps, turtles are preparing…
With over a million licensed anglers and 10,000 lakes, Minnesota is a playground for fishermen of all backgrounds. From the elusive muskellunge and walleye to the familiar bluegill, Carleton’s Arboretum is a wonderful place to explore Minnesota’s underwater world. But before you head over to the Cannon or Lyman Lakes,…
If you wander by the ponds in the Arboretum in early evening or after a rain, you may hear what resembles a chorus of fine-tooth combs. This is the call of the western chorus frog (Pseudacris maculate), an elusive tree frog found in open, damp areas. During the first run…
Along the northeastern edge of Kettle Hole Marsh sits half of a forest. An overstory of red oaks andboxelders towers above a messy tangle of stumps and bare ground. The area feels gutted, the space where an understory should be strangely empty. A little more to the east, right where…
It is mid-autumn in the arboretum: many trees are bare, a few hearty bird species remain, and white-tailed deer mating season is in full swing. Referred to as the “rut,” white-tailed deer mating season occurs from October to December. Because whitetails are short-day breeders, behavioral changes are trigged by reduced…