Have you ever wondered what animals might clean up that dead deer on the side of the road?? At Wolf Ridge we are fond of investigation and discovery. Let’s get to the bottom of this mystery… First we need some road-kill deer. Check. Next we need to set up some trail cameras. Check. Now we […]

The hole by the energy center has a visitor! Most likely this is the same weasel we were tracking in the previous blog post. Read on to learn a bit more about this curious predator. According to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Martens were at one time in danger of disappearing. Around 1920, logging […]

Next to a pile of firewood is a story written in the snow. Scrambling tracks, blood, and a fresh pile of feathers paint a picture. Reddish, brownish, and blackish feathers belong to the unfortunate victim, a Ruffed Grouse. Classic bounding weasel tracks nearby reveal the predator to be a Pine Marten. Depressions in the snow […]

When I returned to Wolf Ridge ELC this fall for a second year I quickly returned to my old hobby of tracking and photographing the resident campus wildlife. Within the first few weeks I was tipped-off by a summer naturalist that a family of busy beavers had constructed a fresh lodge; very close to one […]

On April 26th I went tracking with a professional nature and wildlife photographer named Benjamin Olson. He is interested in what I do as an animal tracker and I am interested in learning the technical side of photography; good companions for a day in the woods. The weather was as follows: in the high 40’s, […]

  On 04/01/14 (Yes, April Fools Day) the Wolf Ridge Organic Farm Manager, David Abazs, left a phone message for me with the naturalist wing at the West Dorm. “David wanted to let you know that there is a Lynx sleeping behind his house” says naturalist Susan Delfs. I didn’t believe it at first and […]

 At the beginning of last month, Wolf Ridge ELC had the sighting of a lifetime. On January 29th 2014, Head- Chef at Wolf Ridge, Barret Stavseth showed me pictures on his cell phone of SIX large gray cats crossing the driveway, down by the proposed Farm site…Rumors and descriptions of sightings began to fill my […]

The class is North Woods Mammals…The group of twenty from Oak Park Elementary and I have already descended the “Stairs of Health and Happiness” off of the ridge and into the valley below… yes all 245 steps later. We are searching intently for signs left behind by warm blooded, fur bearing, milk drinking, live-birth-giving creatures […]