The Naturalist Notebook

Late during the third week of January, the spring interns here at Shaver’s Creek ventured down the hill from the Center to Lake Perez, frozen over with eight thick inches of ice. Standing on the floating dock about an hour before sunset, we each extended a nevertheless hesitant toe onto the ice sheet, followed by a testing step, and finally…

As a native Southern Californian I have not experienced many harsh winters. The closest I have gotten to a real winter was during college in Oregon, but the snow only lasted about a week. I decided I was ready for a change and headed to Pennsylvania for the fall environmental education internship. I have enjoyed…

For the past five years I have practiced curmudgeonry – the very proud act of being a curmudgeon – during the end-of-year holidays. I was 17 when I discovered minimalism, developed an obsession to get rid of most of my belongings, and then began to boycott (with much teenage angst) the “celebration” of December 25th.…

In November, I and 12 other Shaver’s Creek staff attended the 2015 conference for the National Association for Interpretation. As I’ve been telling friends and family about this event, their responses have consistently begun with one question: What is interpretation? The National Association for Interpretation (NAI) describes an interpreter as someone who helps visitors to…

“If we can teach people about wildlife, they will be touched… humans want to save things that they love.” ~ Steve Irwin How do we inspire people to love nature? To protect and care for nature? As an environmental education intern here at Shavers Creek, I have been reflecting and thinking a lot about how…

As I walked through Shaver’s Woods in the early evening a familiar sound quietly hummed through the forest: “katy-did, katy-did.” I began to turn and listen closer to the melody that it played. Sometimes the best finds aren’t even ones that are seen, but heard. The distinct sound of the katydid is one of the…

“To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.” – Wendell Berry As we approach the end of summer we can feel the temperatures…

A mentor of mine always told me, “There’s the real world, and there’s the actual world. Don’t confuse one with the other. This — [and he would point to the natural wilderness beyond] — this is the real world: the world we were made to know.” And I would add: the world we were made…

I donned the Wood Cookie that I had made for Outdoor School during my undergraduate semesters at Penn State, but this time it wasn’t to head to Camp Blue Diamond. This time it was for my last week of Shaver’s Creek Summer Camp. My name is written in black sharpie on the front of this…

Hellbenders — What are they? When someone told me, in college, that there were salamanders in Pennsylvania capable of being a foot and a half long, I thought I would be calling a bluff. But those salamanders are real and incredible and they’re called eastern hellbenders (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis). Hellbenders are the largest amphibian in North…