Enjoy Springtime at Merck Forest (or in your backyard)

• Check out Page Pond and wait for the first amphibians to appear or go to a pond near you to see what amphibians are out and about.

• Look for early spring ephemerals that are blooming: trout lilies, dutchman’s breeches, violets, jack-in-the-pulpits and red trilliums.

• Get involved in citizen science and document your findings with iNaturalist.

• Pick some forsythia branches; bring them inside, force them in water to bloom.

• Go for a hike, and pay close attention to the trees and forest as you go….what do you notice? See the newly unfurled leaves?

• Start a new nature journal, keeping track of dates when flowers and wildlife start to appear.

• Come up to visit our newborn lambs, expected in May!

• Take a long walk or hike and watch nature waking up.

• Farm animals are being born everywhere! Find a farm near you and visit them.

• Sit quietly in the woods, or in a field, and listen to the world waking up.

• Take up bird watching, or head outside to add to your life-list.

• Pull some invasive garlic mustard and make pesto from it.

• Go foraging, for ramps, fiddleheads - be sure to collect responsibility!

• Take a hike on our Discovery Trail and notice the changing forest composition.

• Watch for “bud-out” on different species of trees...what do you notice?

• Stomp in a mud puddle, or make mud pies!

• Climb a tree and see the world from a different vantage point.

• Fly a kite, make a pinwheel!

• Build a tree fort....for your kids, or yourself.

• Help amphibian migration as they cross the roads on those first warm, rainy nights.

• Watch the greening trees creep up the mountainsides.

• Listen to nighttime peepers.

• Try some maple syrup in a new recipe.

• Help your garden wake up by giving it a gentle rake.

• Watch and listen for ravens, working on their pole barn nest and preparing for nestlings.