Blog

Friday Flora

This week’s Friday Flora is not from the collection of the Department of Botany as regularly featured, but comes from the documentary nature photography of Thomas Sadler Roberts. Though birds are Roberts’s most common subject, several examples of flora and…


Minnesota Place Names

In 1920, Warren Upham, contributor to the Minnesota Geological and Natural History Survey, published Minnesota Geographic Names, which included 15,000 names of locales and geological entities in the state of Minnesota. The current and third edition, titled Minnesota Place Names:…


Tuesday Tweet

From the Bell Museum glass plate negative collection: – Young Cuckoo, front view, on finger, June 16, 1898, Waconia, MN – Young Cuckoo, back view, on finger, June 16, 1898, Waconia, MN…


Friday Flora

From the collection of the Department of Botany, Box 17, photo 287: – Lycopodium clavatum, Running clubmoss, Tofte ’00 (1900)…


A love affair with birds – and photography

Last week I shared some of my findings from background research on the Bell Museum of Natural History. After finishing the first book consulted, the Annals of the Museum of Natural History, I moved on to book #2: a biography…


Get out of my nest!

Get out of my nest! – 357, Franklin’s gulls [juv.], Heron Lake, Minn, 6-14-99 (glass plate negative) This young Franklin’s Gull nesting on Heron Lake in Jackson County, MN doesn’t seem too eager to have a visitor. The hand reaching…


Tuesday Tweet

To continue the theme of alliteration that began with “Friday Flora,” starting today, and each subsequent second day of the standard work week, we will feature a “Tuesday Tweet” that profiles anything and everything ornithological. Bird observation checklists, bird banding…


Annual Report: Live beavers

To begin research on the history of the Bell Museum of Natural History, which originated from the collected geological specimens of the 1872 Minnesota Geology and Natural History Survey, the first resource I turned to was the Annals of the…


Friday Flora

From the collection of the Department of Botany, Box 17, photo 148: Burl on oak, Glenwood ’00 Burl: a hard woody often flattened hemispherical outgrowth on a tree (Merriam-Webster)…


Blitz!

Earlier this week I received an email announcement from the Bell Museum of Natural History about BioBlitz 2013, an event slated for this upcoming Saturday, June 15th. At the event, scientists and nature lovers will participate in a 24-hour natural…