Phenology

Today I went on a phenology hike with others at the Hartley Nature Center. John Latimer led our hike today. He has a weekly phenology show on KAXE in Brainerd and Grand Rapids. A group of 20 of us followed him on the muddy and icy paths through the nature center looking at the trees. We looked at the speckled alder. The alder here are behind the alder in his home in Grand Rapids. The alder has not dropped pollen yet here but it has in Grand Rapids which is 11 days later than any year since he started paying attention. We looked at the pussy willows. He showed us how to distinguish the birch from the aspen. For some reason we got to talking about star nosed moles and how sensitive the star nose is to touch. This mole can sense things 20 times more sensitive than human touch. The star nosed mole is the fastest eating mammal on our planet. Another weird thing is that when a star nosed male is underwater, and they do spend time in wet environments like ditches and streams, they can smell underwater by releasing a bubble of air next to the item in question, take the bubble back in, smell the bubble, and decide whether it is edible. My dog, Ruby, dug a star nosed mole up once in our yard so we got a good look at the creature. I didn't know until today that they could swim. Even though rain fell on us during our two hour hike we didn't mind because we enjoyed learning from each other.