What's Your Nature?
Become a Nature Up North explorer to share your encounters with wild things and wild places in New York's North Country. Post your wildlife sightings, landscape shots, photos from your outings, and even your organization's events!
Long-tailed Weasel
Along Lowland Trail at Indian Creek Nature Center.
CANCELED: Tracking Tracks in Heritage Park
Canceled due to weather.
Join Dan French on Sunday, Feb. 16th at 10am in the heart of Canton for a walk around Heritage Park on a hunt for animal tracks. Learn the basics of animal track identification and what we would expect to find on an island in the middle of the Grasse River.
The parking lot is not plowed in the winter, so park in the lots next to Main Street if you'd like to come! Traction devices are heavily recommended! The trail is packed and frozen from foot traffic.
Pine Tree Canopy
I took this picture while cross-country skiing at Higley Flow for the first time. I enjoyed skiing under the canopy of these really tall pine trees!
Winter Animal Walk
Midwinter is a great time to look for the hardy winter birds, look for mammal tracks, and see signs of how life persists in the coldest and shortest days of the year. As we snowshoe the trails of ICNC, you are sure to learn about some of the ways plants and animals survive the midwinter. Bring snowshoes if you have them (there will be some to borrow) and binoculars, and dress appropriately.
Leader: Tom Langen, Biology Department at Clarkson University
Speak Softly and Carry a Sharp Quill
One of our more unusual native residents has an adorable face, makes welcome mats out of their own poop, openly carries weapons, and plows snow all winter. If you snowshoe or ski in the backcountry, you’ll likely come across its furrows. Often, these trails will dead-end at a large tree, and if you look up, you might actually see the rascal itself, a ball of fur and quills sleeping among the branches.
Bird watching chair becomes bird's watching chair.
With the fresh overnight snow, I saw a lot of bird activity on the front porch.
It has a view of the Oswegatchie River and few bird feeders we put out in the yard.
I'd seen birds out on our chairs before, they walk along the slats as they check out there area, but this time it just appeared as though the bird had day down, leaving a butt print while it relaxed and watched the other birds.
Snow and Ice Walk
Join Tom Vanderwater for a short hike about snow!
Meet at the Indian Creek Nature Center for a snowshoe or walk to study snow and ice. If conditions allow, we’ll take an ice core and investigate snow layers and the recent past as revealed in the layers. Bring a hand lens and your favorite snow poem!