Have you been wondering how our local birds can survive the bitter cold temperatures this winter? Birds are warm blooded, just like humans, meaning they can produce their own body heat. They take it a step further though. Birds have a higher metabolic rate than us, allowing them to stay at a higher temperature (around 105 degrees […]
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Are you wondering how cold this winter will be? Some people believe that banded woolly bear caterpillars can give us that answer. It is thought that if a woolly bear has longer black stripes than red, the winter will be colder and thus, if it has a wider red stripe, the winter will be mild. I won’t […]
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Park guest Lisa spotted this hopping mad frog at Glenwood Gardens earlier this fall. It’s cool to see a not-quite-grown frog still with its tail, but this guy also has an extra leg! We asked our nature interpreters what may have caused this odd phenomenon. Though we can’t say for sure what caused this frog […]
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At Great Parks, we strive to protect aquatic ecosystems and preserve the natural beauty of our waterways. An important part of this effort includes cleaning up litter from river and stream banks. Discarded trash is extremely damaging to waterways worldwide — it harms aquatic life, degrades physical habitat, transports concentrated chemical pollutants and can interfere […]
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May 22 is recognized as International Day for Biological Diversity. Areas or ecosystems with high biodiversity have a wide variety of species present, across multiple groups, such as trees, wildflowers, birds and mammals. Undisturbed natural areas typically have high biodiversity, while those modified by humans tend to have much lower biodiversity. You may have seen […]
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One day, you’re sitting and enjoying the outdoors, when a cardinal appears. It lacks the traditional bright red coloring characteristic of its species. Instead, it is mostly white with faint whispers of red. Your first thought may be “An albino cardinal!” This sight would be a rare one indeed, but upon closer inspection, this bird […]
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