Season Watch Newsletter: 6/30/2023

This week, we're talking wildfires, fresh fruit, and great field guides! FYI, there won't be a newsletter next week: keep a good Watch on the Seasons for me while I'm away. Get out there and have fun!

FEATURE: Air quality, wildfire, and climate change

It's a good week for Folks Who Like Graphs! Meteorologist "Tornado Bob" joined Heidi and John this week to discuss historical trends in Canadian wildfires, Minnesota air quality and climate change. Before listening/reading, take your best guess on how rain, temperatures, air quality, and wildfire severity have changed over the last 20-100 years. Then you can check your guess against the data!

Listen in!

Visit our Season Watch Facebook page!

STUDENT AND LISTENER CONTRIBUTIONS

We have two student reports and two listener reports to close out the wonderful month of June! (Bonus: John Latimer tells us which animal he’d choose to become in his next life.)

Hear their voices!

JOHN LATIMER'S WEEKLY REPORT

Summer is speeding by! Luckily, John’s spry enough to keep up. This week, we take a deep dive into early/mid-summer fruits, as well as examining butterflies and the end of birdsong season.

Listen to John's report!

Come learn to observe phenology with us!

8/11/23: Phenology in the Classroom. Lac qui Parle Valley High School. RSVP to smitchell@kaxe.org

More dates and locations will be announced. Desperate to get in on the fun? Send me an email, and we'll set up a zoom meeting!

Support Season Watch here!

SARAH'S RECOMMENDATION

I'm taking it as a personal insult that none of you told me about the Northern Forest Atlas before. Trees, mosses, shrubs, and sedges arranged by ecosystem and growth pattern? Diagnostic traits pictured and pointed out with little arrows? Beautiful photography and EVERYTHING IS FREE?

Be still my heart and be quick my WiFi! I'll talk to y'all in a month when I've devoured all the information on their website and tried really hard not to order every single one of their books and guides. I hope you have an equally-great time feasting on the photography and fascinating facts.

Enjoy!

Monarch butterfly (left) (Danaus plexippus) and viceroy butterfly (Limenitis archippus). Anishinaabemowin: memengwaa.

Enjoy this book about Nanabosho and the Butterflies, by Joe McLellan and Matrine McLellan (and presented by Curve Lake First Nation Library).

Bonus fact: Green herons will use insects, bread, or feathers as bait to lure in fish.

Remain very wary of the baneberry.

Northern Community Radio

KAXE/KBXE

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Funding for this project was provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR). The Trust Fund is a permanent fund constitutionally established by the citizens of Minnesota to assist in the protection, conservation, preservation, and enhancement of the state’s air, water, land, fish, wildlife, and other natural resources.