The Naturalist Notebook

Although Shaver’s Creek has always strived to be on the frontier of environmental sustainability, this past fall we have officially joined Penn State’s Green Team Initiative, headed by the Office of Sustainability.  Green Teams are formed by a group of staff members in any given department on campus who want to help make their organization…

Greetings all, A sunny, cold and rewarding morning to be out and about with 8 other enthusiastic mid-week birders, including 4 of our Penn State students.  We decided to do a mini “field trip” (rather than a bird walk) to Hutchinson Pond and the West Entrance of Stone Valley to take in Puddle Perez, which…

Tomorrow morning is the first Migration Morning Birdwalk of the spring at Shaver’s Creek. Meet in the front yard at the Creek at 7AM. These walks will happen every Wednesday morning from April 6th–May 11th, and are FREE thanks to sponsor Wiscoy for Animals. For more info, visit: http://www.outreach.psu.edu/shaverscreek/index-birdwalks.html Bring your binoculars or borrow some…

At the Maple Harvest Festival this weekend I ate a stack of pancakes (or two), watched my friends tap a maple tree stump, stuck my nose into a bucket of sap, saw seven Horseshoe Cloggers perform to the tune of Taylor Swift, and hiked the Lake Trail in a futile attempt to digest the said…

Hello all Shaver’s Creek friends, THIS weekend is our annual Maple Harvest Festival: Shaver’s Creek has held this annual festival since 1984 to celebrate the first harvest of the new year and help people learn about the maple sugaring process — both in colonial times and the present day. At the festival you can: learn…

Here at Shaver’s Creek the amphibians are out and about! At our Frog Pond in the front yard red-spotted newts, wood frogs and their egg masses are in abundance. Spring is officially upon us and the amphibians have come out from hibernation and are becoming active once again. Red-spotted newts, identified by their brown/yellow skin…

Families attending two recent spring programs at Shaver’s Creek were invited to participate in a new research study on family learning and how they might use science-like, exploration tools during a hike. At each of these programs, families were given the opportunity to fill a small backpack with tools to use on their hike: magnifying…

We are all buoyed by the beautiful spring weather here at Shaver’s Creek. The last few days we have been hearing the sweet woodland song of the Brown Creeper, joined around the center by the songs of Chickadees, Titmice, Juncos and our resident Carolina Wrens. Today we were greeted with our First of the Year…

In late February one of the best ways to see that spring is on the way, other than Punxsutawney Phil’s shadow, is to take a walk and look for Skunk Cabbage.  The flowering plant with an unfortunate odor, hence the name, is commonly found in wetlands, marshes or along stream sides.  The rotten meat smell…

In March of 2010, I took a trip to San Antonio, Texas for a conference with the National Center for Accessibility (NCA).  The conference focused on Universal Design; making recreational areas accessible to not only people with disabilities, but accessible to everyone.  The concept of universal design was new to me, and since we were…