June 21, 2018
Pollination represents a unique partnership between plants and pollinators. These are wild creatures working toward their own self-interest, so both the plants and the pollinators will do everything in their power to get the most bang for their buck out of the arrangement. In our previous post giving a rough overview of pollinators, we described […]
June 21, 2018
This week is National Pollinator Week; a week to draw attention to America’s diverse pollinator fauna. Pollinators are incredibly important, yet many species are imperiled by habitat loss, land use change, competition, disease, climate change, invasive species, and improperly applied insecticides. A pollinator is any animal that transfers pollen from one flower to another. Pollen […]
January 23, 2018
I recently visited the Hermantown Middle School to talk about pollinators with their Pollinator Club. We discussed the importance of pollinators, summarized their natural history, and highlighted the current state of affairs for three prominent pollinators: the western honey bee, the rusty-patched bumble bee, and the monarch butterfly. The 25 or so students in attendance […]
November 10, 2017
When available, the house mouse prefers seeds and nuts, but this opportunistic feeder will eat almost anything available. When the temperatures outside drop, house mice begin searching for a warmer place to live. Attracted by the smell of food and the warmth of a structure, the house mouse can use as little as a ¼” […]
September 12, 2017
With cold weather fast approaching, pests are seeking a suitable place to spend the winter. Don’t let your cabin be their Caribbean vacation home. The most common pests that spend the winter in cabins around the Upper Midwest are cluster flies, Asian lady beetles, box elder bugs and of course mice. Following these seven simple […]
August 1, 2017
If you haven’t already seen these odd-looking creatures, you most likely will soon. Native to China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea, the brown marmorated stink bug is thought to have inadvertently entered the United States in shipping containers in the mid-1990s. First noticed in Pennsylvania, they were initially mistaken for a native stink bug species. Strong […]
