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Cable Natural History Museum

Connecting People to Northwoods Nature

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6:20

400 – Dowsing for Witch-hazel

Cable Natural History Museum ·

2025/11/13

Beside the trail stood a spreading shrub with a few rays of sunlight illuminating tiny yellow flowers that looked just like sunbursts themselves. Witch-hazel! The flower-dappled shrub twinkled like a reminder of spring. While they do bloom near Halloween, witch-hazel’s name is probably a misspelling of old English words wicke or wych that meant “lively” and “to bend.” They refer to the use of a forked branch of witch-hazel as a dowsing rod, which purportedly would bend downward to point out a good

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6:43

399 – Watching Cranes at Crex Meadows

Cable Natural History Museum ·

2025/11/06

“Turn here, they’re heading north!” I directed my fiancé as we navigated the gravel roads of Crex Meadows Wildlife Area near Grantsburg, WI. We’d spotted a line of sandhill cranes flying through the sunset sky, and were following them toward what we hoped would be a spectacular evening of birdwatching.The post 399 – Watching Cranes at Crex Meadows first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

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6:04

398 – Fantastic Fungi

Cable Natural History Museum ·

2025/10/30

The air shimmered as I walked through the forest, the heavy mists encompassing me in a damp blanket. As my shoes trod on soggy leaves, I took in the quiet serenity of the forest. Many of the trees had begun their annual changing of the colors, painting the canopy in shades of yellow, orange, red and green. Their discarded leaves were already beginning to dot the forest floor in late September. But fallen leaves weren’t the only contributors of color on the ground–the fall mushrooms were popping in

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5:42

397 – Butterfly Breezes of Fall

Cable Natural History Museum ·

2025/10/23

At first, a flutter at the edge of my vision made me think that an autumn leaf had somehow managed to fall half a mile to the middle of the lake. A closer look revealed the dark purple wings of a mourning cloak butterfly. In late September? Weeks later, a flutter at the edge of my vision caught my attention just in time to watch an autumn leaf come to rest on the ground. Small quaking aspen leaves carpeted the trail in a mosaic of yellow and green. They were evidence of yet another way that a

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6:51

396 – Flying Kittens

Cable Natural History Museum ·

2025/10/16

“Just hold her like this,” Kurt told me. So I carefully nestled my first two fingers into the soft, warm feathers around the neck of this tiny northern saw-whet owl, cradled her soft, warm torso in the palm of my hand, and secured her brown and white wings with my thumb and other fingers. My heart stopped for a moment, but under those soft, warm feathers I could feel her smaller heart racing. Learn more about the volunteer opportunities with Mike and Kurt's saw-whet owl nest box and MOTUS tower

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6:05

395 – Green Frogs Prepare for Winter

Cable Natural History Museum ·

2025/10/09

Finally, within sight of the next lake, movement near the toe of my boot startled me almost to the point of disaster. Big black eyes with golden rims stared up at me from the slope of a rock. Crooked toes gripped the rough surface, and long hind legs braced for a quick escape. The green frog who had jumped out from underneath my boot perched motionless, as if that made them invisible. The post 395 – Green Frogs Prepare for Winter first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

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6:00

394 – The Mystery of Mast Years

Cable Natural History Museum ·

2025/10/02

Last week I wrote about acorns clattering across my roof. As it turns out, nuts are raining down on many of your roofs, too! Commiserating over the loud, foot-rolling acorns makes me feel like part of an extended community. Are the oaks part of a similar community? And why are they suddenly attacking us with acorns!Oaks are mast species, which means that all the trees in an area will produce a bumper crop of acorns at the same time, but only every two to five years. From mice to owls to chatting

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5:09

393 – A Summer of Loon Discovery

Cable Natural History Museum ·

2025/09/25

The pontoon bobbed in the water as I stepped onto the deck, clutching binoculars and trying to contain my excitement. Since moving to the Northwoods in the middle of winter, I had been waiting for the chance to see a loon, and my chance finally arrived in late May. The sunlight danced across the water as our boat left the dock, and we began our search. It wasn't long before we spotted the silhouette of a loon off in the distance, and headed for a closer look.Two large red oak trees reach the edges

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6:43

392 – Attack of the Acorns

Cable Natural History Museum ·

2025/09/18

Crack! Rumble, rumble, rumble. Crack! The sound of hard objects pelting my metal roof shot through my open bedroom window, rousing me from the last wisps of sleep. Then silence. I braced myself as a soft hush of wind drew closer. Crack! The wind triggered a new spatter of noises. The house was under attack—by acorns. Two large red oak trees reach the edges of their canopies out over the roof of my house. Each fall, they create a racket as acorns drop on the metal roof, tumble down the steep slope,

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6:52

391 – Shades of Rot and Life

Cable Natural History Museum ·

2025/09/11

(This essay is a chapter from Emily’s third book, Natural Connections3: A Web Endlessly Woven, which will arrive in November 2025!)In the dim light, under the thick, hardwood canopy of the forest, death was everywhere. Of course, life was everywhere too. The post 391 – Shades of Rot and Life first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

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5:58

390 – Mysterious Loon Behavior

Cable Natural History Museum ·

2025/09/04

We’d only been watching for a few minutes when suddenly one of the loons took off running and flapping down the bay toward the main lake. Huge, webbed feet splashed at the surface. As soon as the first loon rose above the water, the remaining loon followed in a flurry of flapping wings and feet. What had just happened? The group looked around at each other in amazement, feeling lucky to have witnessed this fascinating bit of loon behavior.The post 390 – Mysterious Loon Behavior first appeared on

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4:46

389 – A Blue-Spotted Vision

Cable Natural History Museum ·

2025/08/28

Although the temperature plummeted and rain ran off our jackets, our excitement and determination could not be dampened. Rubber boots tromped over soggy leaf litter, and hands grasped at every fallen log, flipping them over as we searched the forest. The Wild Wonders campers and I were on a mission, seeking out an animal who thrives in rainy conditions–the salamander.The post 389 – A Blue-Spotted Vision first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

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6:41

388 – Unexpected Hope

Cable Natural History Museum ·

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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4:49

387 – Further Observations of Forked Fungus Beetles

Cable Natural History Museum ·

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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5:04

386 – Finding Forked Fungus Beetles

Cable Natural History Museum ·

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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4:52

385 – Seeds on the Move

Cable Natural History Museum ·

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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5:59

384 – Boundary Waters Beauty

Cable Natural History Museum ·

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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5:43

383- Looking Into the Lives of Dragonflies

Cable Natural History Museum ·

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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6:31

382 – Treasures of the Big Bay Lagoon

Cable Natural History Museum ·

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! The post 382 –

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6:53

381 – Hunting For Elk

Cable Natural History Museum ·

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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