Category: Education
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Shagbark Hickory
Shagbark hickory (Carya ovate) is named after the recognizable feature of the mature tree. The bark in the higher truck splays out thus the adjective shagbark. Hickory is a hardwood tree. The leaves of the shagbark hickory are a compound odd numbered pinnate (central stem) leaf. The compound leaf is 12 to 24 inches long.…
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Ann Arbor Public School Nature Areas
The Ann Arbor Public Schools (AAPS) have 6 woods/nature areas associated with schools. To see more check the M-Live article Sleeping assets: Ann Arbor Public Schools owns nearly 200 acres of undeveloped land in city – mlive.com AAPS owns the central property containing the loop trail of Scarlett Mitchell Woods. Scarlett Mitchell Woods is used…
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Pheromones
Pheromones are chemicals that humans, animals and insects use to communicate. Pheromones are analogous to an excreted/secreted hormone. Read more on pheromones on the Wikipedia page. Pheromones are involved in almost every aspect of the honeybee colony life: development and reproduction (including queen mating and swarming), foraging, defense, orientation, and in general the whole integration…
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Fractals in Nature
Fractals are all around us. You are most likely carrying one right now. I’m a programmer and my logo is a fractal snowflake. Per Wikipedia, “a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales”. I’ll start with a simple example of the Cantor Fractal. The Cantor divides a line into three sections and…
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List of birds of Michigan
The following is a list of categories of birds in Michigan. Clicking on the link will take one to the category on Wikipedia. Ducks, geese, and waterfowl New World quail Pheasants, grouse, and allies Grebes Pigeons and doves Cuckoos Nightjars and allies Swifts Hummingbirds Rails, gallinules, and coots Limpkin Cranes Stilts and avocets Plovers and…
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For the Birds
From Ann Arbor New article April 3, 1981 For the Birds – Clague Intermediate Scholl industrial arts teacher Nancy Sharpless found a nice way to combine learning with community service this past week, and for a bonus provide help to wildlife. For a woodworking project, the students in her exploratory arts program made 25 bluebird…
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Acorn Weevil
For those of you who are curious about those little round holes that appear in acorns and hickory nuts, here are the two videos that will identify the source of these holes. If you forage for nuts without holes and store them in a bag, you may end up with a bag full of holey…
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Dekay’s brown snake
Tuesday afternoon was a glorious sun-filled late October event that cried out not to be wasted. With that in mind, Judy took Pat up on an invitation to join her Scarlett Nature Club for an after school walk in Mitchell-Scarlett Woods. Pat, Treasurer of our newly founded Friends of Scarlett Mitchell Woods group, is also…
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Common Bees of Michigan
“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.” a quote sometimes attributed to Albert Einstein. Needless to say, bees are an important pollinator. See a PDF of 16 common bees…
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Dryad’s Saddle
Dryad’s Saddle (Cerioporus squamosus) was seen on the Spring Unfolding 2023 event on Saturday May 13. This fungus is attached to a downed tree around the south side of the pond. Other shelves of Dryad’s Saddle were on the log. Wikipedia for Dryad’s Saddle Missouri Department of Conservation