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Category: Door to Nature

  • Door to Nature: Look for Thimbleberries in Bloom

    I remember the very dry summer of 1976. One August morning, I ventured out to pick some thimbleberries. I had an old ice cream bucket with me in which to collect them and carefully stepped over fallen trees to reach some of the fruit.  After about an hour of picking, with only one layer of […]

  • Door to Nature: Ruffed Grouse

    I was driving home from Egg Harbor when I noticed a hen ruffed grouse begin to cross Church Street about 30 feet ahead of me. I stopped to let her go, and after a bit of hesitation, she quickly and carefully crossed within the crosswalk lines, with her 12 newly hatched chicks close behind. This […]

  • Door to Nature: Dandelions and Goatsbeard

    ’Tis the season for dandelions to turn green lawns gold again. I often thought it was logical for the Green Bay Packers to choose green and gold for the team’s colors. In autumn we have many goldenrods decorating the landscape as well. Dandelions are in the Composite family of plants known for having flowers in […]

  • Door to Nature: Global Big Day Is May 9

    May 9 will be Global Big Day, when a worldwide census will be taken of bird species and the numbers present in as many parts of our planet as can be surveyed. In 2019, there were 35,209 birders participating in 174 countries who contributed 92,284 checklists in a single day! This year’s goal is to […]

  • Door to Nature: Emerging Garter Snakes

    Two friends and I enjoyed a hike at a Door County preserve recently – maintaining our six-foot social distancing – when we discovered a garter snake warming itself in a sunny spot in the conifer woodland. We walked a few more yards, and there was another one, soaking up the sun. These harmless and valuable creatures […]

  • Door to Nature: Enjoying Nature While Staying Home

    During these days of cautious social distancing, we’re mostly working from home. Some people still must go out to work in essential businesses, but many of us are staying in our residences. A new friend, Deb Ford, helped me learn how to use an online birding site called eBird (ebird.org/home): a great way to share […]

  • Door to Nature: Wild Leeks

    Nature’s greening of the earth Here it is, many days after St. Patrick’s Day, and the color green is still on my mind. As I look out at my drab, brown, partly snow-covered woods, I think about the first plants that should be pushing out of the ground in April: the wild leeks. If you […]

  • Door to Nature: Woodpeckers of Door County

    Photos by Roy Lukes Which animal has a hammer and chisel, a telegraph key for advertising, crampons and scaffolding to aid in climbing, built-in shock absorbers and even a face mask to keep dust out of its lungs? Obviously the creature in question is the woodpecker. Its beak is an efficient chisel, coupled with strong […]

  • Door to Nature: Birds That Are Seedeaters

    Many people look down on the common sparrow as a bird that’s unworthy of any praise. When the sparrow is mentioned, most people think of the English house sparrow, a nonnative “pest” brought here from Great Britain. The word “sparrow” dates back many centuries and originally meant the common yard bird of the Mediterranean area, […]

  • Door to Nature: Meet the Meadowlarks

    During the early years of our married life, my late husband, Roy, and I worked together doing a breeding-bird survey for the federal government. It had to be run all in one morning during a strict, six-week period from late May to the end of June. The 24.5-mile route that was assigned to us was […]

  • Door to Nature: The Sugar Maple, Our State Tree

    This winter has been warmer than usual, and I learned that good friends had already tapped 180 sugar maple trees by Feb. 29 – a bit earlier than in the past. The best conditions for good sap runs are sunny, warm days with light winds, plus subfreezing nights. Back in 1893, a statewide vote by […]

  • Door to Nature: Watch for Tiny Snow Fleas, or Springtails

    As I write this, it’s the last Sunday in February, the sixth straight day of wonderful solar heat and the second day in a row with a high temperature above 40 degrees. It made me get out to chop the leftover ice on my driveway and enjoy the spring-like temperatures. My friend Dale Goodner was […]

  • Door to Nature: The Swift-Flying Accipiters

    Sharp-shinned hawks, Cooper’s hawks and northern goshawks I was participating in the annual Great Backyard Bird Count on Feb. 15 when I heard a loud bang on my dining room window and saw a mourning dove fall to the ground in the grasp of a sharp-shinned hawk. They both landed in the snow not far […]

  • Door to Nature: Artistic Frost Crystals

    It was on Feb. 21 a year ago when I already had 30 inches of snow for the month and then noted that the next day, I was to put out the rain gauge! It rained all through the night of Feb. 23 into Feb. 24. By the time I brought the gauge in, it […]

  • Door to Nature: Door County Snowstorms

    During the winter of 1981-82, we experienced a record amount of snow in Baileys Harbor. The first storm of 1982 was a wet, heavy snow that became frozen and stuck to the trees. More than 60 inches fell in January of 1982 alone, and that had a terrific impact on many trees.  Evergreen trees growing […]

  • Door to Nature: ‘The Lady of the Woods’

    One of my favorite native trees is the paper birch, or what some call the white birch because it stands out in the landscape with its pure-white trunk. My late husband, Roy, and I used to admire the beauty of its bare branches against a clear, blue sky as we took our winter walks together. […]

  • Door to Nature: Snow Buntings

    It was on my drive to a morning meeting that I saw a flock of about 300 snow buntings flying and landing, and doing that over and over on an open field of harvested grain. I stayed in my car along the side of the road and watched them with great joy. This was the […]

  • Door to Nature: Robins in Winter

    One of the most widespread native breeding birds in North American nests in all 49 of our continental states and every Canadian province is viewed by many as the harbinger of spring. You guessed it: the American robin. A recent email from a friend in Baileys Harbor asked about a robin she’d seen in a […]

  • Door to Nature: Getting More Birds to Your Feeders

    A dearth of birds this winter has frustrated many people who enjoy seeing their feathered friends at the feeders. In fact, our Sturgeon Bay Christmas Bird Count had the fewest birds observed during the 23-year history of this event. When trees produce record numbers of seeds, as they did in 2019, it provides enough natural […]

  • Door to Nature: Christmas Bird Count Report

    The Sturgeon Bay Christmas Bird Count was conducted Dec. 14 with 11 field parties consisting of 23 observers. Each group was assigned a particular section of a 15-mile-diameter circle, the center of which was the junction of Highway 57 and County P at Institute. The day began with a low of 28 degrees, overcast skies […]