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The beavers are back! We're seeing a lot of new beaver activity at the MK Nature Center. The beavers are cutting trees to get ready for winter.
The cut in the photo below is on a large tree at the beginning of the long bridge across the pond.
We placed the wire around the tree to prevent the beaver from taking this important shade tree. Every morning, there is new evidence the busy critter. This morning, a visitor reported they saw the beaver. We scurried out to catch a glimpse, but the illusive creature disappeared. Come visit - you might not see the beaver, but you will see their work.
Crayfish (also called crawdads and crawfish) are freshwater crustaceans that are related to lobsters. They are mostly found in North America in small rivers and streams with fresh running water where they hide from larger predators. Crayfish like to live in cold, clean water.
Adult crayfish feed and are mostly active during the evening and night, which means they are nocturnal animals. The feed mainly on dead organisms such as salmon, but also eat plants such as algae.
Wood ducks (Aix sponsa) are back at the Nature Center. They are native to the pacific northwest and reside in Boise all year long. The males have bright, distinctive coloring while females are less colorful and have a white ring around their eyes.
Wood ducks bob their heads back and forth when swimming and are very shy and skittish. They are smaller than mallard ducks and lay their eggs in tree cavities next to water so that the ducklings can have a soft landing.
Wood ducks prefer living in wooded swamps, shallow lakes, and small ponds which makes the Nature Center a great habitat for them.
Nature Center Superintendent, Dave Cannamela holds a Boise River crayfish, much to the amazement of Collister Elementary students. Fall is a perfect time for Class in the Creek, the Nature Center’s popular aquatic ecology program for students 4th grade and up.
Other treasures found in the river include, fish (sculpin and dace), mayflies, caddisflies, algae, and snails. This is a great time of year to go exploring around in the Boise River shallows.
It's that time of year again when the temperature is beginning to cool and the leaves are just starting to turn color and fall. One of the most interesting Idaho native tree at the Nature Center is the quaking aspen. Aspen leaves flutter in the wind giving the tree a "quaking" appearance.
When you see an aspen tree, you are actually looking at just one small part of a very big plant. Aspen trees are just shoots from a great big system of roots underground. In the fall, all aspen shoots (trees) that are hooked together underground change color at the same time. All the trees in an aspen stand can be part of the same plant. When an aspen tree is cut down, the parent plant, underground, sends up multiple shoots or "suckers" in its place. Some of the largest organisms on earth are aspen stands.
The MK Nature Center was host to the 13th annual Salmon and Steelhead Days two weeks ago. On September 9, 10, and 11, two thousand 5th graders came to MKNC to learn about salmon, their life cycle, their habitat and cultures that celebrate them. This event is put on by Idaho Fish and Game, US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and the Nez Perce Tribe. One of the activities the 5th graders experience is CLASS in the CREEK. Students use boots and nets to find aquatic insects that feed salmon and trout.
Kokanee Arrive at the Nature Center: On Wednesday, September 9, the Nature Center received a shipment of 200 Kokanee Salmon. You can now see them swimming among our rainbow trout and chinook salmon! But they won't be here for long. If the mink and great blue heron don't gobble them up, then the fish will live for about a week and a half. They were captured from Anderson Ranch Reservoir where they migrated to spawn and die.
Fire season is upon us! Every year, forest fires claim houses and property and sometimes even human lives. Fire Wise Gardening is a program sponsored by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that helps educate landowners how to landscape around their home to prevent fire damage.
At the Nature Center, we are partnering with the BLM to create a demonstration garden. Pictured below, the photo on the left is the Golden Currant (Ribes aureum) in our new garden. It is a medium-sized shrub that can grow to 2-3 meters in height (as seen in the right photograph).
The Golden Currant will bloom golden yellow flowers in the spring that have a similar aroma to vanilla or cloves. This shrub will produce small berries that are edible when they turn amber yellow to black. Along with being fire resistance, the Golden Currant is also drought tolerant. We have many more plants in our Firewise Garden so come check them out.
We have a variety of plants and flowers in our HIP area (Habitat Improvement Program) at the Nature Center. We grow a garden with a variety of vegetables, but the glowing attraction is our line of golden-yellow sunflowers. The sunflowers range from 5 to 7 feet tall with a flowering head of 4 to 7 inches across.
Sunflowers, like other members of the Aster family, are composites. When you look at a sunflower, it looks like one flower with yellow petals. But you are actually looking at hundreds and hundreds of flowers . . . most with brown petals. The tiny flowers on the outside of the circle have ONE yellow petal. This composite of flowers makes the cluster look like one, big, beautiful flower.
As with many flowers, the flowering head will follow the sun as it moves across the sky, a phenomenon known at phototropism.
Several Chinook salmon were brought to the Nature Center from Rapid River Hatchery near Riggins, Idaho. These salmon were raised in the hatchery and released when they were smolts (juveniles) for their journey to the Pacific Ocean. Chinook Salmon spend 1-3 years in the ocean eating. Then, they make the amazing and strenuous journey back to the place they were born . . . in this case, the Little Salmon River. These fish will now spawn at the nature center starting in mid August. Like all Pacific salmon they will die shortly thereafter, releasing their ocean nutrients back to the environment.
Salmon do not eat once they leave the ocean which could be several months. They may lose up to a third of their weight and their immune system is weakened. This young "Jack" (male that has spent one year at sea) did not survive long enough to spawn; a natural occurrence for a portion of all salmon populations. The fungus and bacteria has begun the decomposition process. It may seem sad that Salmon die once they return to Idaho, but it’s nature’s way of bringing nutrients back to Idaho. Salmon, alive and dead, are eaten by other animals.
With summer temperatures rising bird baths become more important. This male house finch (Carpodacus mexicanus) is enjoying a drink of water next to our stream running through the bird viewing area at the Nature Center. The coloring of this male varies with each season and is derived from its diet. The coloring may range from a light yellow to a deep red. Females are mostly brown.
House finches stay in Idaho all year round and are widespread throughout the U.S. They feed mainly on local berries, seeds, and dandelions. They are commonly seen in our bird viewing area along with many other types of birds eating sunflower seeds and nyjer thistle.
At least 168 species of butterflies have been found in Idaho. Butterflies are an important part of our ecosystem because they pollinate many plants and are a food source for many birds. Butterflies are also fun to watch float around our native butterfly garden here at the Nature Center.
Pictured below is a Western Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio rutulus) pollinating a milkweed plant. The best time to see butterflies like the Western Tiger Swallowtail and many others is in the middle of a warm summer day. Planting native Idaho plants including cottonwood, willow, and quaking aspen trees and native wildflowers will bring these beautiful butterflies right to your backyard.
We have had some recent visitors here at the Nature Center. A female mule deer, and her two young fawns have been seen hiding in the Nature Center foliage. Fawns are born in the spring and stay with their mothers during the gummer months. The fawns will be fully weaned after about 60-75 days.
The white spots seen on this young fawn are used as camoflouge to hide from predators. Mule Deer are known to forage on herbaceous plants such as Blackberry and Huckleberry bushes. Their food of choice here at the Nature Center are dogwood and tomato plants.
The daisies are blooming here at the Nature Center! Our butterfly garden is attracting all sorts of butterflies and insects. There are many different varieties including the Shasta Daisy.
The Shasta Daisy (Chrysanthemum maximum) is an easy-to-grow perennial that looks beautiful outside or in a vase. Daisies will bloom the year after you plant them, and continue every year with bigger blooms. Our butterfly garden is a sight to behold so please come and enjoy the sights!
Seven Chinook salmon arrived at the Nature Center the last week of June! They arrived here from the Rapid River Fish Hatchery in trucks and coolers.
These Chinook Salmon were born in Idaho and migrated to the ocean in 2006, 2007, or 2008. They have migrated back to Idaho to spawn. The three year ocean fish that we received are around 33 inches long. In this photo, there are some 12 inch rainbow trout in the foreground.
Western screech owls are often seen during the daytime at the MK Nature Center. They are small owls, standing only about 8.5 inches high. They often perch on trees near the trunk, using their brown and white feathers to camouflage themselves. It appears this screech owl found one of the many nesting boxes to occupy.
Screech owls have a call that is best described as a series of high pitched hoots that speed up toward the end of the series.
This baby beaver was brought to the MK Nature Center by someone walking the greenbelt. This little guy was not injured at all, but seemed very hungry when we offered him some aspen branches.
In the spring and summer, when you see young wildlife, abandoned, injured, or just alone, it is BEST TO LEAVE THEM ALONE; leave them where they are. Parents usually return for their young and if not, nature will take its course.
Mule deer often leave their fawns for periods of up to 15 hours; we observed this first hand last year when a mule deer doe blessed us with a fawn. Leaving baby animals alone is difficult to do, because they're so cute and it is tempting to want to help them.
In the case of the baby beaver, since we found a dead adult beaver last week in the same location (killed by a dog), we did call a wildlife rehabilitator to nurse this guy until he could be on his own.
Beavers regularly visit the nature center for food and building materials. You can see a lot of evidence of their "work" all around our ponds and creeks. We welcome them here as part of our aquatic habitat. Their "work" regenerates aspen and willows!
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