Natural Connections
by Emily Stone
Natural Connections is a weekly newspaper column created by Emily Stone, the Naturalist/Education Director at the Cable Natural History Museum in Cable, Wisconsin. In each episode, Emily reads her fun and informative weekly column about Northwoods Nature.
Episodes
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450 - Seeing Through a Forester's Eyes
A crisp fall breeze floated through our group as we stomped through the forest, our shoes crunching on fallen leaves and frost. Fall had arrived in the Northwoods, bringing spectacular colors, cool temperatures, and no bugs. Our group mission, to learn more about the forests of the Northwoods…
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449 - Winding Our Way Toward Winter
Nosing between two rocks, the snake seemed to be searching for something. But no, that wasn't the place. They swung around and moved along the base of the rock until reaching a long crack. Tongue flickering in apparent recognition, they lifted their head up toward a wide place in the crevice…
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448 - Woodland Walks with Lois Nestel
"Autumn has trailed light fingers across the byways and in the wake of that cool touch, the leaves flush or blanch and sink earthward in a silent swoon…The passing of days is swift and soon the glory will fade to the dun shades that precede winter's snow." – Lois Nestel, Wayside Wanderings. With...
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447 - Fall Food and Fellowship
The mini-bear darted close, then scurried off, posing motionless for brief moments to survey the area for danger. From the top of a lichen-covered rock, they sounded their characteristic clucking alarm call, tail hiccupping with each repetition. Even though they sniffed hard at my little baggie…
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Into the Boundary Waters
The crystal clear waters splashed against the pebbled shore as we gathered up our gear. Conifers of every size crowded the distant banks, beckoning us into the wilderness. Our group was full of excited chatter as we piled gear onto picnic tables near the water, our anticipation for the adventure...
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445 - Modes of Misery
"Here is where the journey is," philosophized Doug Wood when I finally picked the book back up. "…why do I go through it? Because no one else can go through it for me." It's true. And I love going through the challenges of a canoe trip. Planning, paddling, portaging, wayfinding, camping, and even...
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444 - The Sweetness of Death in Autumn
"Something smells nice right here," commented my fiancé as we hiked over a rock outcrop strewn with sun-warmed, yellowed birch leaves. The sweet aroma of autumn comes when microbes break down sugars that trees manufactured in the height of summer. Before letting them go, the tree pulled nitrogen...
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443 - Holy Moly Roly Poly
"Holy Moly Roly Poly!" This enthusiastic shout came from an adorable, towheaded 4-year old, standing on the far side of a log I'd just rolled toward me. Together, we paused to watch a dozen or more oval gray invertebrates with lots of legs scurry in confusion around their suddenly well-lit home....
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442 - Second Grade Tracking Stories
Last week I attended the Outdoor Writers Association of America's annual conference in Madison, Wisconsin. At the conference, it was announced that my third book, Natural Connections 3: A Web Endlessly Woven won second place in the Excellence In Craft Contest's book category. Naturally, I'm...
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441 - Gems of Lake Superior
My hands moved slowly over the pebbled beach as the waves of Lake Superior gently lapped the shoreline. I had found myself a nice spot to sit on the beach, close enough to the waterline to gaze at the rocks being gently tumbled by the waves, but far enough back to have a dry place to sit. As I...
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440 - Turtle Travels
Rosie Wollums is about to start her Junior year as an Environmental Studies and Creative Writing major at Coe College. Being in the Northwoods for the first time as a Summer Naturalist Intern at the Museum, Rosie was excited to explore and visit Lake Superior. There she met a snapping turtle with...
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439 - Weirdos in the Kaleidoscope
Late summer days are a kaleidoscope of vibrant flowers in all colors of the rainbow. Some of the blossoms have their perfect petals neatly arranged while their leaves form regular patterns up their stems. They are a testament to the precision that can be written into genetic instructions for...
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438 - Front Yard Safari
The flower head looked odd. Pearly everlasting—with their beautiful flat-topped cluster of white flowers with yellow centers—had finally bloomed. And now the petals would dry out and hold their shape for many months. Except, as I walked past the small patch of native plants between the Museum and...
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437 - House Finches Get a New Coat of Paint
Katherine Woolley is about to start her senior year as an environmental education major at Western Colorado University. When Katherine arrived for her second round as a Summer Naturalist Intern at the Museum, she announced that she hit a certain age and suddenly became a birder! This week she...
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436 - A Yellow-bellied Surprise
The Wild Wonders Summer Camp kids chattered away as they dug into their lunches, oblivious to the yellow-bellied sapsucker who skirted up and down the bark of the tree just a few feet away, in search of their own lunch. I watched as the sapsucker took flight, their speckled wings flapping quickly...
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435 - Who's Hiding in the Tapestry?
From a distance, the forests of July look like a lush tapestry of green. But when you step into the loosely woven strands and take a closer look, the leaves are etched with feeding trails, dissected by holes of all shapes and sizes, and covered with the debris of life. It's a principle of…
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434 - Stalking Wonder
I barely caught the flash of brown out of the corner of my eye, but Kevin had a clear view. He followed the flight path of the bird until they landed on the far side of a small channel lined with arching sedges. Despite the bird's pinstriped camouflage blending seamlessly with the tall grass, and...
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433 - Heartbeats and Birds
My heart raced as I reached my hand into the bag. What if I broke them? What if I let them escape? Then my fingers found a familiar grip, and before I knew it, I was holding this bird just like I had the warbler. Now that I was the bander and not just the releaser, the vibration of their heart…
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432 - The Making of a Master Naturalist
The sound of boots crunching on sandy sediments and excited chatter filled the air. The first day of our Wisconsin Master Naturalist training had begun, and twenty people from all walks of life were eager to learn about the ecology of the Northwoods. Over the next five days, these participants...
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431 - Preserving the Legacy of Black Ash
Dappled light, mosquitoes, and the roar of a chainsaw filled the humid air on a morning in early June. Guided by skilled hands, the blade sliced through pale wood. Lacey green leaves trembled against the blue sky before tipping toward a gap in the canopy, brushing past the twigs of neighbors, and...
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430 - Summer Blooms with Lois Nestel
While staying in Boulder Junction, Wis. to take a Wilderness First Responder course last week, I made time for a bike ride on the Heart of Vilas County Bike Trail. This wonderfully curvy, scenic, paved trail is a favorite of mine. At this junction between spring and summer, I delighted in the...
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429 - Fossil Explorations
I sat on the tan, dusty ground of the quarry in north central Iowa, fingers grasping at the shell that lay halfway buried in the chalky clay and limestone. Wiggling it back and forth, I gently pulled it up from the ground that it had been resting in for millions of years. The ridged shell was...
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428 - Spring Explodes in the Northwoods
In just the last week or two, new life has exploded in the Northwoods. To my brain, it feels like a burst of fireworks. Instead of embers sparkling in the darkness, there's been a surge of colorful blossoms, an eruption of vibrant baby leaves, a cacophony of birdsong, and a buzz of movement...
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427 - Balsam Poplar-Tree of the Far North
The shiny resin on balsam poplar buds turns to airborne molecules during spring leaf-out. Those molecules contain a myriad of chemicals that are useful to the tree -- and beneficial to us! Thriving in the far north -- farther than any other broadleaf tree in North America -- balsam poplar is…
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426 - A Prairie-Dweller Moves North
426 - A Prairie-Dweller Moves North A lump of gray fur in the middle of the trail pulled us up short. The small mammal was about the size of a gray squirrel, but with cute, round ears tucked below their silhouette. I'd never seen a Franklin's ground squirrel before! On various websites I read…
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425 - The Trill of a Pine Warbler
My companion gasped in the middle of a sentence as a pine warbler darted over my head and landed on rough spruce bark a few feet way. Then he swooped to a rock wall and paused mid-hop to belt out a trill. We watched his stout beak open and his white wing bars vibrate with the effort. Pine…
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424 - A Torrent of Mis-Named Birds
First, we squinted, then we peered through binoculars, and finally I zoomed in with my camera to make sense of the dark shapes. The ducks had a funny conehead and a gracefully swooped patch of gray on their side. The pale ring around their dark beak was the most distinctive character. I'm not…
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423 - A Shorebird in the Forest
Just having returned from a week of birdwatching on the Atlantic coast, the plump-bodied, long-billed silhouette of this "hokumpoke" reminded us of the sanderlings, dunlins, and willets we'd watched scurry ahead of the waves. It's a strange fact that despite their preference for damp thickets...
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422 - The Heron's Plan
The fish appeared to be a striped mullet, a common species of coastal waters. At first, the mullet appeared to be winning. They flopped and slipped father through the herons bill, surely about to escape the final grip on their head. Then the heron's plan became apparent. All the movement was...
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421 - Sunrise Dancers
It was well before sunrise as we drove into the Namekagon Barrens Wildlife Area and parked the truck. Moving as silently as possible, we grabbed our chairs, a much needed thermos of coffee, and started the walk to the viewing blind, its white silhouette barely visible in the distance. Once to the...
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420 - Spring Cleaning with Turkey Vultures
On the inside, turkey vultures' intense stomach acids can kill the microbes that cause botulism, anthrax, cholera, tuberculosis, salmonella, and rabies. How appropriate that the birds' scientific name—Cathartes aura—means "purifying breeze." Their digestive system is so powerful that it even...
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419 - Thrasher Concert
From the top of a leafless oak tree commenced a steady stream of whistles and warbles that sounded as if an entire flock of flickers, vireos, titmice, cardinals, and wood thrushes were all taking turns. Just one robin-sized bird perched there, though. Brown thrashers are "mimics" who increase…
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418 - The Loons of Lake Jocassee
Scientists used to think that almost all our Common Loons spend the winter on salt water. From across the northern lakes, loons migrate to both coasts and the gulf each fall to avoid ice-up. Now we know that more than 100 loons spend each winter on a large freshwater lake in South Carolina. In…
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417 - Mushroom Munching Slugs
As mother nature slowly begins to tease us with the occasional warm day, and longer periods of sunlight, I can't help but dream of warmer days spent exploring outside, underneath the forest canopy. One of my favorite things to do while exploring the forest is to take in the intricacies of the...
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416 - "Whooo" will we see?
Seeing a moth seemed to signal that evening was coming, and our thoughts turned to owls. Sax-Zim Bog is famous for hosting rare owls. Last year was an incredible irruption year when great gray owls, boreal owls, and snowy owls visited from their homes farther north. This year has been much…
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415 - Peanut Butter Saves the Jay
The Canada jays swooped from the feeding station, back over my head, and disappeared into the forest behind me. Were they taking peanut butter to their chicks? These intrepid birds nest in February and March! That's one reason their food caches are so important.
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414 - Fishers Looking For Love
Early spring is when male fishers travel widely in search of mating opportunities. I often see their tracks in the softening snow as they tour their 9-15 square mile home ranges that overlap the smaller territories of several females.
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413 - The Elusive Lynx
I stared open-mouthed in disbelief at the cat crossing the neighborhood street in front of my new house in Silver Bay, MN (I'll be moving up full time in 2027). Trotting purposefully on long legs, with a body almost three feet long, this was no housecat. "Bobcat!" I exclaimed, eyeing the black…
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412 - Is the Sun Setting on Evening Grosbeaks?
Evening grosbeaks are colorful members of the finch family. These bright birds travel widely toward the best food sources in movements known as "irruptions." In 2016, the evening grosbeak was cited as the steepest declining landbird in the continental United States and Canada. Together, networks…
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411 - Stories in the Hemlocks
As my boots crunched and sunk into the snow, the trees were shedding bits of snow that littered their branches, dispatched by the wind. In my attempts to avoid getting showered by falling snow, I found myself walking among scattered giants. Standing next to the old eastern hemlock, staring up at...
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410 - How Do We Know the Moon
"'I know the moon,' said the fox" My colleague read this title line aloud from a children's book recently, as part of a staff training. At first, I was just as enchanted with the story as she was. The fox goes on to describe how the Moon is like a rabbit that he can chase across the night. The…
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409 - Why Woodpeckers Don't Get Concussions
The idea that a woodpecker's tongue provides cushioning for their brain as it wraps around their skull has come into question. The newest calculations, made with the most accurate modern technology, refute the idea that a woodpecker's brain is cushioned at all! Of course, any of these conclusions...
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408 - Cute Bits of Camouflage
Brown creepers are cute little bits of camouflage with white bellies. This one moved upward in staccato motions, a bit to the side, around to the back, back to the front, and up some more. Pausing, the bird used their thin, downward-curving bill to explore a bark furrow. Perhaps they had spotted…
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407 - My Friend the Muskrat
As snow continues to blanket the ground, and the plummeting temperatures cause the air to bite at exposed skin, I can't help but reminisce on warm summer day adventures. One adventure in particular had me exploring local wetlands, those special places where water and land blend together to create...
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406 - Mulling over Mullein
This is the season for lists highlighting our most-listened-to or best-of-whatevers at the end of the year, so I decided to dig into the stats on my Natural Connections blog. To my surprise, the most-read article in 2025 was one I wrote in February of 2016 about a plant called mullein. In August...
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405 - The Bohemian Bird
Bohemian waxwings are known for their ability to find a tree full of berries in the middle of nowhere, descend on it en masse, strip every edible fruit from the twigs, and then disappear to their next meal. That's exactly what they did as I watched.
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404 - Wintertime Porcupine
Heading north on Highway 63, the beautiful scenery never fails to keep me entertained as I drive through the picturesque nature of the Northwoods. While my thoughts wandered, a large dark spot high in a distant tree caught my eye. At first, I thought it might be a squirrel drey–a large nest of...
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403 - The Subnivean Zone Returns
As winter's first snowflakes drifted through the dark, some landed on top of dead plants, fallen leaves, twigs, and other detritus of the forest floor. In many places, snow never fully reached the ground. That was surely true for the protected hideaway of my thermometer. By dawn, it was buried...
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402 - The Bright Red Warning of Barberry
The arching stems, decorative berries, and warmly hued, persistent fall foliage of barberry, plus the complete lack of deer browse on their twigs, are why they were brought to the U.S. as an ornamental plant in 1875. That was fine, until in the 1980s they started to spread out and displace native...
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401 - Southward Migration
The shallow water in Northwoods marshes and bays began to crackle with a skim of ice recently, gently reminding everyone that winter is on the way. Ice-up is a firm deadline for many beings who migrate to travel at least a little bit farther south. I got caught up in the flurry of activity and…
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About this show
Natural Connections is a weekly newspaper column created by Emily Stone, the Naturalist/Education Director at the Cable Natural History Museum in Cable, Wisconsin. In each episode, Emily reads her fun and informative weekly column about Northwoods Nature.
Hosted by
Emily Stone