Friday Flora: A better view
How is your view today? When I look out my window I see the snow falling, gray skies, and the dismal frigid environment that we seem unable to escape here in Minnesota. When I look away from my window and…
February 2014
Catch of the Day
With Minnesota fishing licenses set to expire tomorrow, we thought we should share some of the fishy photos from the negatives in the Bell Museum of Natural History records to commemorate the close of the 2013 angling season. Cast your…
Wild Animal Wednesday: Squirrel Around
– Striped ground squirrel standing up, Anoka County, July 1, 1933 (l) Striped ground squirrel facing left, Anoka County, July 1, 1933 (r) Striped ground squirrel facing front, Anoka County, July 1, 1933 – Striped ground squirrel facing right,…
Tuesday Tweet: The Winter Bird-Life of Minnesota
In February of 1916, Thomas Sadler Roberts, associate curator of the Zoological Museum, released the first of what he termed “Occasional Papers,” a series of bulletins issued from the “Zoological Division of the Geological and Natural History Survey.” The content…
Monday at Minnehaha
The Pioneer Press recently published an article about public safety in one of Minneapolis’s oldest city parks, “Frozen Minnehaha Falls are cool, but visitors should heed warnings.” Minnehaha Park’s Minnehaha Falls are certainly a sight in the winter. The falling…
Friday Flora: Tick Trefoil
You’ve got a little something on your skirt… – Desmodium grandiflorum (Desmodium cuspidatum), “Tick Trefoil,” large, with Miss I. Dorman, March 22, 1924 (From Ned L. Huff’s hand-colored lantern slides in the Department of Botany collection)…
Smokey Bear?
Yesterday we shared Walter J. Breckenridge’s recollection of his trip to the Superior National Forest near Winton, Minnesota to observe the courting ritual of the Spruce Grouse in the spring of 1931. In his autobiography, My Life in Natural History,…
Wednesdays with Walter: The Spruce Grouse
Well it is Wednesday again, which means it is time to revisit the wilderness adventures of Walter Breckenridge, former preparator, curator, and director of the Bell Museum of Natural History. His description from his autobiography, My Life in Natural History,…
Tuesday Tweet: Motion Study
I’ve been watching a lot of slow motion instant replays recently as a result of being an avid watcher of the coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. Did the snowboarder/skier get enough rotation in their jump?…
The General Museum: Part II – Look toward Ward
As we shared in a blog post a few months ago, the University’s “General Museum” – the museum established by the 1872 act that created the state Geological and Natural History Survey – started humbly. It wasn’t until three years…