12-spotted skimmer - June 2, 2012Lynn arrived back to the news that Big Harry was seen again last night beside the Bear Head State Park Road tracking south toward June. Today, when we noticed that June was about the cross that road, we raced there to see if she was being followed by Harry. We were too late. GPS locations showed June walked away from the road too fast for us to catch up.
Heinrich points out a dragonfly - June 2, 2012Lynn and Donna Rogers had gone to Minneapolis so Donna could take a day-long Monarch Butterfly class at the University of Minnesota while Lynn, their daughter Colleen, and grandson Heinrich visited Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden. The 15-acre natural woodland, established as a protected area in 1907, is the ultimate in interpretive nature trails. Lynn was looking for ideas for the Bear Center nature trails. His daughter Colleen is a teacher/naturalist. He wanted her ideas and to see what interested little 2 ½ year old Heinrich who is becoming a bit of a naturalist already under Colleen’s tutelage. Heinrich was interested in bugs and frogs and a family of elusive wild turkeys. He picked up spiders and other bugs, dissected mushrooms, and touched many things—all while staying on the trails like a good boy. Lynn couldn’t understand Heinrich’s word for dragonfly, but Heinrich knew and pointed one out. A great and memorable day.
Bumblebee - June 2, 2012Along the line of getting ideas, any elementary school teachers who visit the North American Bear Center are encouraged to let us know you’re coming (218-365-7879). We would like to meet with them and glean ideas for making the Bear Center, especially the Cub Room, as educational and entertaining as possible. As we plan the Hope Education Building and improve the current Bear Center, we’re looking for ideas in addition to those we received from the survey. Lynn hopes to personally gather ideas, if possible, or hear what teachers share with other staff there.
Lily Fans are putting together a cookbook and need your recipes by June 8. So far, they have recipes from 10 states and 2 countries. Lynn will be sending in his recipes for a healthy smoothie and a healthy drink and his usual lunch concoction. Currently, recipes are being collected on the Facebook "Lily Fan Cookbook" Forum page. We’ll let you know as soon as something is set up for non-Facebook fans to contribute recipes.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center