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PODCAST

Natural Connections

Natural Connections is a weekly newspaper column created by Emily Stone, the Naturalist/Education Director at the Cable Natural History Museum in Cable, Wisconsin. In each episode, Emily reads her fun and informative weekly column about Northwoods Nature.

science natural sciences

All Episodes

06:41

388 - Unexpected Hope

Natural Connections ·

2025/08/21

I was just about ready to round up the group and move on from the old quarry when someone exclaimed over a pretty white flower among the weeds. Five luminous petals, each with translucent lines arcing gracefully toward the nectar reservoir in the center, provided the backdrop for a ring of delicate eyelashes tipped with glossy yellow spheres. I could barely believe my eyes! I first met bog star, or marsh grass-of-Parnassus, during my summer in Alaska while assisting with a snowshoe hare study in the

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04:50

387 - Further Observations of Forked Fungus Beetles

Natural Connections ·

2025/08/14

Guest writer Katherine Woolley is about to start her junior year as an environmental education major at Western Colorado University. This summer, as a Summer Naturalist Intern at the Museum, she taught our Junior Naturalist programs and showed a real talent for finding and appreciating the oddest parts of nature. I spotted the male first. He was sitting on the highest point of the mushroom shelf like he was the king of the hill. Then I spotted his mate, who to my surprise, looked like she was

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05:04

386 - Finding Forked Fungus Beetles

Natural Connections ·

2025/08/07

Guest writer Katherine Woolley is about to start her junior year as an environmental education major at Western Colorado University. This summer, as a Summer Naturalist Intern at the Museum, she taught our Junior Naturalist programs and showed a real talent for finding and appreciating the oddest parts of nature. A walk along the Forest Lodge Nature Trail is never boring. I was reveling in this fact as I took my evening meander through the large trunks of towering trees. To my left, I spotted a

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04:52

385 - Seeds on the Move

Natural Connections ·

2025/07/31

Guest writer Kylie Tatarka is about to start her senior year as an environmental science major at Rochester Institute of Technology. This summer, as a Summer Naturalist Intern at the Museum, she taught our Junior Naturalist programs and spearheaded the creation of the online “Becoming the Northwoods” exhibit. Seeing the aspen-covered ground reminded me of a tree that is more common in my home state of New York, the eastern cottonwood tree, which is a relative of the aspen with similar

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06:00

384 - Boundary Waters Beauty

Natural Connections ·

2025/07/24

The Boundary Waters is beautiful, but that’s only part of it. What really keeps people coming back, I believe, is the way this place helps us to challenge ourselves. When you cut out the excess, the superfluous, and the mess, and fit everything necessary for a week or two of life into a single, green pack, life becomes simple. There is an incredible sense of freedom in this knowledge of self-sufficiency. This freedom feels all the more sweet when it comes with manageable challenges and a means to

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05:44

383- Looking Into the Lives of Dragonflies

Natural Connections ·

2025/07/17

Upon spotting the green dragonfly resting close enough for me to capture, I knew I had to try. With my kayak nestled into the grassy bank of the Namekagon River, I snapped a few photos of my target and began to reach my hand out slowly. But when my fingers gently grasped the dragonfly, I was horrified to find that it was squishy rather than the typical hard feeling of an exoskeleton. My hand shot back to my side in an instant, repulsed. My first thought was that the dragonfly was dead and

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06:32

382 - Treasures of the Big Bay Lagoon

Natural Connections ·

2025/07/10

The calm waters of Lake Superior glimmered in midday sunshine, and dozens of families enjoyed the sandy beach of Big Bay Town Park on Madeline Island. I hiked past them all, my steps echoing slightly on the boardwalk that winds through pine forest behind the beach. In the lagoon where decomposition has slowed and organic matter has accumulated over time, a floating mat of Sphagnum moss and sedges holds numerous treasures in a type of wetland called a fen. Treasures I was hunting!

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06:53

381 - Hunting For Elk

Natural Connections ·

2025/07/03

If an elk calf can make it through their first year, they have a 92 percent chance of surviving each year after that. The DNR is in year two of a three-year effort to understand the survival rates and mortality factors of that first perilous year. Do the young do better where there’s been a recent timber harvest or other disturbance? How important is it for the maternity habitat to have a view? To answer these and other questions, they attempt to locate and deploy a GPS collar on 25 calves as soon

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05:58

380 - Canadian Tiger Swallowtails

Natural Connections ·

2025/06/26

Something small and bright caught my eye. Stopping mid-stride and mid-conversation, I bent down to look at a small jumble of legs and exoskeletons in the tread of the Ice Age Trail. The yellow mantle behind the head of a black carrion beetle is what I’d noticed first. They are quite striking, even when rooting around in the decaying flesh of a recently dead animal, looking for a place to lay their eggs. The adults eat dead stuff, too, hence the bear hug this one was giving a shiny brown, but

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05:59

379 - Junebugs and Beetles

Natural Connections ·

2025/06/19

Something small and bright caught my eye. Stopping mid-stride and mid-conversation, I bent down to look at a small jumble of legs and exoskeletons in the tread of the Ice Age Trail. The yellow mantle behind the head of a black carrion beetle is what I’d noticed first. They are quite striking, even when rooting around in the decaying flesh of a recently dead animal, looking for a place to lay their eggs. The adults eat dead stuff, too, hence the bear hug this one was giving a shiny brown, but

en

04:53

378 - Skydancing the Night Away

Natural Connections ·

2025/06/12

Excitement and nerves were at an all time high as my car crept down the gravel road, the sun having just slipped below the horizon. I was on the hunt, following clues to lead me to my prize. My treasure was the somewhat elusive American woodcock, and I was hoping to catch a glimpse of their infamous skydance.

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06:31

377 - Baby Food

Natural Connections ·

2025/06/05

Although I often hear their rattling bugle calls echoing across the lake and through my open windows, having cranes nest where I could see them was a new treat. For a few weeks, every warm afternoon found me biking along that stretch of road with my camera at the ready. Each time, the evening sunlight spotlighted the face of a crane on the nest.

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06:40

376 - The Teachings of Ghost Pipe

Natural Connections ·

2025/05/29

Last Sunday I was asked to give the message for the Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Flower Ceremony. Everyone brought a flower, they were admired in a bouquet, and each person left with a different flower. This symbolized the unique value of each person and the way we came together to create a beautiful bouquet. To illustrate this idea, I chose to talk about ghost pipe (previously named Indian pipe), a plant whom I’ve been puzzling over for a while. In preparing the talk, I realized that I’d

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06:34

375 - Wilson's Warblers on Their Way

Natural Connections ·

2025/05/22

Scientist E.O. Wilson’s book Biophilia hypothesized that humans possess an innate tendency to seek connections with nature and other forms of life. He wrote, “To an extent still undervalued in philosophy and religion, our existence depends on this propensity, our spirit is woven from it, hope rises on its currents." I watched as the Wilson’s Warbler bounced like popcorn through the narrow, willow-ish leaves of an unknown desert shrub. While this bird was named for a different Wilson, he certainly

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06:21

374 - Networking

Natural Connections ·

2025/05/15

I apologize for the weird audio quality this week! I'm traveling -- as you'll hear -- and my audio editing program did an update that takes out breath noises, etc, automatically. But that also changes how my voice sounds and seems to reduce enunciation. If it's too annoying to listen to, you can read the article at: https://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/

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05:31

373 - Adventures in Porcupine Wilderness

Natural Connections ·

2025/05/08

At the trailhead, the woods were set alight by the sunshine reflecting off the melting snow. While my boots crunched down the trail, my eyes wandered to the trees where life was starting to awaken. Lichens, mosses, and mushrooms decorated the bark in a burst of bright greens, yellows and oranges–a welcome sight against the backdrop of the forest.

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06:48

372 - Lois Nestel’s Sweet Ode to Spring

Natural Connections ·

2025/05/01

“What sweet ode shall we write to spring? Soft and tremulous one minute, tempestuous the next, she proffers her gifts with one fair hand and with the other snatches them away.” –Lois Nestel, Wayside Wanderings II

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06:28

371 - The Sparrow's Songs

Natural Connections ·

2025/04/24

A faint string of birdsong filtered through closed windows on a recent morning. It was well after dawn, but thick gray clouds made it feel like the Sun had yet to rise. “Song sparrow!” I exclaimed. “They must have arrived overnight!”

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05:48

370 - The Pulse of a Waking Forest

Natural Connections ·

2025/04/17

The grouse drummed again; thumping slowly at first, and then crescendoing into a rapid-fire blur. As his last vibrations dissipated into the still air, another grouse answered from a neighboring territory. The low-frequency sounds are audible from up to a quarter mile away. I’m always amazed by how much I feel their sound instead of hearing it.

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06:03

369 - Snowshoe Hares Eat Dirt

Natural Connections ·

2025/04/10

For three days in the summer of 2018 we worked on this mark-recapture survey along a pipeline access road in the Brooks Range of northern Alaska, gathering data that would help scientists at the nearby Gates of the Arctic National Park estimate snowshoe hare population numbers for this year. Our opinion? The population was high. Almost every trap was full, which meant a delayed lunch, and that sense of relief to find an empty trap.

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199 results

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