Cable

Cable Natural History Museum: Be a Superhero

Connie Attractions & Events, Wisconsin , , , , 0 Comment
Cable Natural History Museum: Be a Superhero

Imagine being so strong you could pull a dinosaur. When I stepped on a scale at the Cable Natural History Museum in Cable, Wisconsin, I found out that if I was a dung beetle, I’d be strong enough to do just that, as dung beetles can pull up to 1,411 time their body weight. I’m glad I’m not a dung beetle, though. What a poopy life that would be! The dung beetle is one of several insects and flowers highlighted in the museum’s Nature’s Superheroes exhibit.

Dung_Beetle_ScaleEveryone who visits the museum gets a chance to be a superhero, too. As you enter the museum you are asked to don a superhero cape. This goes for adults as well as children. If you’d like, you can enter the phone booth an ordinary person and emerge as a superhero.

Mini superheroesSkip and I chose to evolve into our superhero personae in the wide open museum lobby. I was a tree frog and skip was a dragonfly.

Connie the Gray Tree FrogSkip the dragonflyWhat superpowers do a tree frog and a dragonfly have? Superpowers in nature are actually adaptations given to the species for survival. The tree frog can become nearly invisible, or at least blend in with the tree so well that predators don’t see it. The dragonfly flies fast, really fast, at speeds up to 30 miles per hour. Its four wings, which can each flap separately, allow them to fly in all directions. They can even do aerial stunts.

Don’t miss a Midwest Wanderer post.  For a FREE subscription, enter your e-mail address in the Subscribe2 box to the left and click Subscribe.

Among plant life, the bunchberry’s superpower is also speed, whose pollination mechanism takes less than half a millisecond, making it the fastest flower on earth.

The force behind the Nature’s Superheroes exhibit was conservation sidekick Naturalist Educator, Emily Stone. She put the exhibit together with help from staff and volunteers, creating hands-on and interactive activities that make learning fun, like the opportunity to appear on screen flying along a nature path in your superhero cape.

Flying superheroElsewhere in the museum are exhibits of species native to the area, as well as a large room used for education purposes. On the day we visited, children were making owl puppets from paper bags.

Taxidermied ducksKids owl projectThe museum offers over a hundred public programs throughout the year. The night before our museum visit, Skip and I participated in the museum-sponsored Owl Prowl with host naturalist Susan Thurn, where we learned to call barred owls.

The Cable Natural History Museum will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2017. However, its building is only five years old and very impressive. If you’re in the area, it’s a fun small museum to visit, especially if you have children.

Cable Museum exteriorAfterwards, visit the museum’s property down the street, the home site of the museum’s first naturalist. The big attraction there for kids is the huge fallen limb from the oldest and largest tree on the property. Kids have enjoyed climbing on the limb for some time, so steps are now being built into the limb, and a small “fort” is being added at the base of the tree. What a fun way to adapt to nature’s occurrences.

tree with stair stepsThe Cable Natural History Museum, located at 13470 County Highway M in Cable, Wisconsin, is open year round. Check the web site for exact hours and admission rates.

Disclosure: Our trip to northern Wisconsin was hosted by the Wisconsin Department of Tourism, but any opinions expressed in this post are my own.

Thank you for reading Midwest Wanderer. Don’t miss a post. Enter your e-mail address below and click Subscribe to be notified whenever I publish another post. Subscription is FREE. After subscribing, be sure to click the link when you get the e-mail asking you to confirm.   – Connie

Owl Prowl: Calling Owls in Wisconsin’s Wilderness

Connie Attractions & Events, Wisconsin , , , , , , , , , , 0 Comment
Owl Prowl: Calling Owls in Wisconsin’s Wilderness

Our itinerary instructions said to meet at the North End Trailhead at 8 p.m. to call in barred owls. If it was October, there would have been an element of Halloween eeriness about it, driving down dark, silent North Wisconsin forested roads, meeting an owl caller who attracts birds of prey. My imagination could run wild with that. But it was July and still light as we made our way to the meeting place following maps and signs. The GPS wouldn’t do for this destination.

Don’t miss a Midwest Wanderer post.  For a FREE subscription, enter your e-mail address in the Subscribe2 box to the left and click Subscribe.

Skip and I met Susan Thurn, a naturalist formerly with the nearby Cable Natural History Museum and expert barred owl caller, accompanied by Emily Stone, the museum’s current naturalist. A newlywed couple on their honeymoon were the other participants in the evening’s activity.

Before the calling began, Susan shared some interesting facts about barred owls:

  • They can’t move their eyes in their eye sockets
  • They have extra vertebrae in the neck and can turn their neck 270 degrees
  • If they could read, they’d be able to read a newspaper from across a football field
  • Human eyes would have to be the size of grapefruit to see as well
  • Barred owls nest in tree cavities or in old nests of hawks or crows
  • They breed once a year, in February or March
  • Males weigh on average 1.5 pounds, and the females average 2 pounds.
  • The weight is mostly feathers
  • Wingspan is about 38 to 42 inches

Susan demonstrated how the soft, feathered edges of the owl’s wings dampen the sound made from flapping wings.

Susan Thurn with feathersWe also passed around an owl talon and an owl pellet. Owls eat small prey whole and then regurgitate non-digestible parts. The pellets are usually bones covered with fur.

Owl talonsAlthough there are several kinds of owls that make the Wisconsin Northwoods their home, we would be calling only barred owls.

Susan has the sound of the barred owl down pat. She once used a machine that compared her call to the call of a barred owl, and it match almost perfectly. You can hear a barred owl sound (click to listen) on Learner.org’s online Owl Dictionary. It sounds kind of like “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?”

We learned the sound together as a group and then stayed completely silent while Susan called an owl. She said they don’t always call back; it depends on how close by they are. When they do call back, they may actually come closer, to protect their territory, or move farther away, to leave another owl’s territory.

Susan Thurn calling owlsSilently we listened as Susan called, “Hoo hoo hoo hoooo, hoo hoo hoo hooo.” Silence, She called again. This time we heard an answer. “Hoo hoo hoo hoooo, hoo hoo hoo hoooo.” Susan called again, and we got another answer. This went on for a couple of minutes, each time the owl sounding farther away. Susan says she always lets the owl “win” by ending her calls before the owl does.

By the time we left, night was falling. Even though it was nowhere near autumn, a bit of Halloween eeriness was in the air in the dark forest that was once again completely silent.

Owl Prowls, held about four times each year, are one of many events sponsored by the Cable Natural History Museum, Cable, Wisconsin. Donations are welcome from event attendees.

Disclosure: Our trip to northern Wisconsin was hosted by the Wisconsin Department of Tourism, but any opinions expressed in this post are my own.

Thank you for reading Midwest Wanderer. Don’t miss a post. Enter your e-mail address below and click Subscribe to be notified whenever I publish another post. Subscription is FREE. After subscribing, be sure to click the link when you get the e-mail asking you to confirm.   – Connie