Sturgeon Bay, Wis. (September 30, 2024) – We are past the meteorological fall, the autumnal equinox, and crowds of fall festivals, but for us at Crossroads, the new season starts when the maple trees start to change color, and with the new season comes several new activities. Don’t worry, we aren’t dropping any of our regular […]
Clouds
By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. At Crossroads at Big Creek, we and many of our friends, find ourselves obsessing about clouds. Appropriately, “Clouds” will be the topic for the weekly “Science Saturday” program. But clouds—the presence or absence of clouds—will affect most of the programs and projects we have planned. […]
The Future of Boreal Forests
By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. At Crossroads at Big Creek, our restoration team is completing the grant close-out reports for our multi-year restoration projects at The Cove Estuary Preserve and the Big Creek Preserve. This week, the Climate Change Coalition will bring Lee E. Frelich, the Director of the University of Minnesota […]
The Study of Bubbles
By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. When we at Crossroads at Big Creek selected “Bubbles” for the topic for “Saturday Science” on the final day of August, the idea was to offer an effervescent fun-filled final fling to end our summer programming. Who doesn’t delight in blowing bubbles? And we all know about soap […]
Monarch Tagging Day
Join with Wild Ones-Door Peninsula and Crossroads for our annual monarch tagging program. Starting in the lecture hall, Naturalist Karen Newbern will describes the monarch life cycle and migration patterns. Then (hopefully, migration tends to be weather driven) participants are invited to help capture and tag these stunning orange and black butterflies which are on […]
Nature is Full of Hexagons
By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. Looking at the array of programs at Crossroads this week, we begin to see patterns…repeating patterns… of hexagons. If we are “looking,” we are seeing thanks to hexagons because the photoreceptors (light-catching cones in the back of our eyeballs) form closely packed hexagon-shaped patterns. And […]
Resources for Landowners Series at Crossroads
By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. Crossroads is excited to welcome Tim Dahl and Jason Miller from Door County Soil & Water and the Door County Invasive Species Team (DCIST) on Thursday, August 8 at 5:30pm to discuss resources available to all as part of the Resources for Landowners Series. The […]
Creatures that Return Each Summer to the Door Peninsula
By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. Our Door County summer residents, many of whom have, over the years, become Crossroads donors and volunteers, have returned. Some have raised their children here and now are sharing Crossroads and other natural areas with children and grandchildren. Curiously, this week, each of our nature programs will focus […]
Red, White and Blue Birds
By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. Though the Collins Learning Center will be closed on Independence Day, our trails (like always) will be open all day, every day, so on Thursday, holiday hikers may see red, white and blue birds on each of our three Crossroads preserves. Then July 5 at 5:30 pm, […]
Dark Skies and Wildlife
By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc. This week at Crossroads, our public programs focus on under-appreciated, but essential components of our environment: biodiversity, fungi and dark skies. On Saturday, May 11, the Crossroads Habitat Healers will plant native tree seedlings starting at 9:00 at the Crossroads Workshop, and at the same day, the […]
