x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

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

06:03

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.

en

06:04

368 - A Home for Wood Ducks

Natural Connections ·

2025/04/03

Listening to a pair of wood ducks explode from a tiny patch of open water in a woodland pond and woo-eek through the woods is a distinctly springtime experience. Wood ducks are uniquely adapted for life in the forest, with strong claws on their webbed toes that allow them to perch on tree branches. Scaring up a pair of wood ducks together is common, because these ducks find a mate on their wintering grounds and arrive home together.

en

05:22

367 - Icy Wonders of Chequamegon Bay

Natural Connections ·

2025/03/27

The first ice cave was a wonder to behold. Crouching low, we shuffled into the crack that was the cave entrance. The light from our headlamps danced across the cave walls and highlighted the mass of clear ice that extended from the ceiling to the surface of the lake. As other tour guests took pictures with the glowing ice, I was marveling at the cave formation. Sitting under a low-hanging section of the cave, I began to think about how these caves along Chequamegon Bay are formed.

en

06:09

366 - Loon Behavior on Lake Jocassee

Natural Connections ·

2025/03/20

For recording time-activity-budgets for loons, Jay has an app on his phone that is set to beep at 2-minute intervals for an hour. At every beep, the binocular-wielding observers help the recorder mark down the behavior. Was the loon resting, locomoting, preening, foraging, or being aggressive? And was the loon within 25 body lengths of another loon? How many loons? One of the main goals of this research is to compare how loons on the salt-free waters of Lake Jocassee spend their time, versus loons

en

06:34

365 - The Loons of Lake Jocassee

Natural Connections ·

2025/03/13

The first day of Loon Camp begins with a count of all the loons on Lake Jocassee, which is why I was now puttering through the upper lake on a pontoon boat with Jay, Brooks, and seven other “loonatics.” With eyes scanning and binoculars at the ready, we spotted solo loons fishing in the deep water, rafts of loons preening near shore, and gaggles of smaller waterfowl like horned grebes, too. Jay kept the tally on his data sheet, and we were free to be amazed by the loons.

en

04:42

363 - Heaven in the Northwoods

Natural Connections ·

2025/02/27

Note from Emily Stone: I’m so excited that Heaven has joined our Museum team! In between teaching MuseumMobile programs in schools, organizing spring field trips, and leading Junior Naturalist Programs, Heaven will be guest writing for Natural Connections about once a month. I’m looking forward to following her journey of discovery in the Northwoods! Heaven in the Northwoods: "The wonders of nature have fascinated me from a young age. Now I strive to understand the intricate natural workings of

en

05:45

362 - Black-backed Woodpecker in the Bog

Natural Connections ·

2025/02/20

I hardly needed to zoom in to see the bird’s black head, white face with black stripe, black-and-white barring on their flanks, and solid black back. Five years ago I’d seen an almost identical woodpecker in this same bog, but that one had a stripe of white down the middle of their back identifying them as a three-toed woodpecker. This was their cousin, a black-backed woodpecker.

en

05:57

361 - The Breeze of Balance

Natural Connections ·

2025/02/13

The wind can be a symbol of unity, freedom, eternity and balance. It is as true ecologically as it is metaphorically. As the winter winds swirl around you, take moment to appreciate the wind’s role in encouraging balance and unity in our sometimes stormy world.

en

05:46

364 - Winter Wind and Wildflowers with Lois Nestel

Natural Connections ·

2025/02/06

As the snow melts and I enter the melancholy often brought on by mud season, I find myself seeking comfort in the words of Lois Nestel, the founding naturalist, director, and curator of the Cable Natural History Museum. She wrote: “Now there seems a desolation and bitterness in the wind as though it mourns the sadness and injustice in the world. But the wind is not governed by political upheavals, poverty or crime. It is as it has always been. Only the listener, the endurer, has changed."

en

06:54

360 - Frost Cracks

Natural Connections ·

2025/02/06

It wasn’t long before someone keyed in on an adorably squiqqly line snaking up the length of a tree. A frost crack! Long ago I learned that these cracks burst open with a noise like a rifle shot as a sunny day plunges into a frigid night. I couldn’t remember, though: was it the contraction of cooling wood, or the expansion of ice that caused the trunk to split? Both make sense. I pondered this as we hiked along, and also tried to spot more cracks throughout the forest.

en

06:13

359 - The Sweetness of Bitter Cold

Natural Connections ·

2025/01/31

You know it’s chilly when even Lake Superior can see their own breath. During a recent period of bitter cold, there was sea smoke drifting across the shining gray wavelets near Grand Marais, MN. Lake water had also formed ice on the rocks near shore, and we circumnavigated Artist’s Point to admire Nature’s sculptures. All the while, a small flock of mallard ducks bobbed on the waves in East Bay, behind the protective curve of Artist’s Point in Lake Superior. Then, driving home, something large

en

06:15

358 - Second Grade Tracking Stories

Natural Connections ·

2025/01/23

Murmurs of interest rippled through the classroom as I spread a rectangle of green felt on the floor at the front of the room. The murmurs became questions as I placed two lines of life-sized animal tracks, printed and cut out of white paper, onto the felt. When I finally invited the second graders to come up and gather around the felt, I was amazed by the almost instantaneous formation of a perimeter of kneeling children, totally focused on the scene.

en

06:31

357 - Operation Owl Rescue

Natural Connections ·

2025/01/16

On Christmas Day, I found myself driving from Lutsen, Minn., to Duluth with a very unusual package next to my skis and duffle bag. To reassure ourselves that the owl was still alive, Christine opened one of the flaps on the box. Staring up at us were two giant yellow eyes nestled into satellite dishes of gray-patterned feathers that funnel sound into the owl’s hidden ears.

en

06:31

356 - Wilson's Warbler WOW

Natural Connections ·

2025/01/09

Gathered around a bonfire on the Winter Solstice, the hostess asked us each to share one moment from the past year that made us go, “Wow!” Despite the fact that my year had included rafting the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, my favorite “wow” moment happened on a river much closer to home. One lovely afternoon last May, I set out with a friend to paddle an upper section of the Namekagon River. Approaching a bridge, a burst of twittering, movement, and flashes of yellow in the alder shrubs

en

06:07

355 - A Black-capped Brain

Natural Connections ·

2025/01/02

Chickadees cache as many as one hundred thousand food items per year. Not only do chickadees remember their seed cache sites, but they also remember details like which food items were the most favored and which seeds have already been eaten by them or by a thief. To support such an incredible memory, chickadees grow 30 percent more neurons in the fall when caching behavior peaks. Last April, researchers at Columbia University added to our understanding of chickadee memory. They discovered that

en

06:07

354 - A Stomach for the Holidays

Natural Connections ·

2024/12/26

While digesting one of the many rounds of holiday feasts and leftovers, with plates of cookies in between, a headline caught my eye: “Big brains or big guts: Choose one.” As much as the post-holiday-dinner-brain-fog is real, I don’t love the implications of those options. Luckily, the article wasn’t about humans. It was examining birds in cold, highly variable habitats, and their struggle to survive. Essentially, birds have two options: spend energy maintaining a big brain that allows them to find

en

06:03

353 - The Color Splash of Mountain-ash

Natural Connections ·

2024/12/19

In a landscape of winter white, bits of color really pop. Recently I was on the North Shore of Minnesota when they received several inches of fluffy, wonderful snow. The forest seemed decked out for Christmas with clusters of bright red mountain-ash berries adding color in the woods along the ski trails, around town, and on the rocky shore of Lake Superior. Ruffed grouse appreciate them even more, I’m sure, as they perch in the dark purple twigs and nibble both berries and buds. And now the trees

en

353 - The Color Splash of Mountain-ash

Natural Connections ·

2024/12/19

In a landscape of winter white, bits of color really pop. Recently I was on the North Shore of Minnesota when they received several inches of fluffy, wonderful snow. The forest seemed decked out for Christmas with clusters of bright red mountain-ash berries adding color in the woods along the ski trails, around town, and on the rocky shore of Lake Superior. Ruffed grouse appreciate them even more, I’m sure, as they perch in the dark purple twigs and nibble both berries and buds. And now the trees

en

06:00

352 - Red-eyed Vireo Nests

Natural Connections ·

2024/12/12

The lack of leaves in this “see-through season” reveals aspects of the landscape otherwise obscured. For example, “Check out that nest!” I exclaimed to my friend, and we admired the small cup suspended between a Y in the sugar maple twigs. The placement of the nest, plus the few pale strips of paper from a bald-faced hornet nest woven among grass, bark, and pine needles, told me that it was likely built by a red-eyed vireo.

en

06:08

351 - Winter Songs of White-Throated Sparrows

Natural Connections ·

2024/12/05

On a recent hike in Virginia, a song burst out of a bush beside us. The white-throated sparrow riffed on their usual song, experimenting with a gravely “sweet can-a-NA-da can-a!” “Jazzy!” We laughed to each other. I don’t usually expect birds to sing in their winter habitat. Birds’ songs are typically used to attract mates and defend territories, and therefore are most useful in spring and summer. So, we figured we were hearing a young male practicing for the coming year. As it turns out, that was

en

200 results

Similar Podcasts

Classic Radio Science Fiction

solgoodmedia.com

Mission to Mars

Inception Point Ai

The 365 Days of Astronomy

365DaysOfAstronomy.org

Creek Devil

william Jevning

UFO Chronicles Podcast

Nik Hunter