By: Ryan Foguth. Being born and raised in Michigan, I grew up hunting, fishing and trapping and was blessed with my dad building a cabin in the eastern Upper Peninsula In 1999. I spent large chunks of my childhood at that cabin, hunting and trapping until I joined the Coast Guard in 2011. When I met my wife Nicole, who was also active duty Coast Guard, while stationed at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, she had never hunted before. With it being one of my life’s greatest passions, she didn’t have much of a … Read More
They’ve Arrived!
Oh blessed event… Though 2 weeks post dates, our little snappers have arrived. It was Saturday morning, September 14, 109 days after Mrs. T so gracefully deposited her eggs deeply into the sand before returning to the creek, leaving her latchkey offspring behind. This task was completed 2 days after Memorial Day. If you read the previous article, The Legend of Mrs. T, then you learned about this yearly happening that I was privileged to witness for the first time. The odds are against them, but somehow, a few survive to carry on their legacy. … Read More
The new Jay’s and Webber Wildlife Education Center is a great place for the entire family to visit.
July 24, 2024, marked the grand opening of the new Jay’s and Webber Wildlife Education Center located close to Jay’s Sporting Goods in Clare. Stepping through the doorway to the museum is a bit of a breathtaking moment, I can assure you. The first thing to greet you are the full-sized mounts of two zebra stallions fighting, and from there on as you look around and move to each exhibit, you’ll encounter wildlife from all over the world being presented in their distinct habitat. The artwork adorning the walls to enhance each exhibit is nothing … Read More
Nature’s most amazing earth excavator
The old tongue-twister “how much wood can a woodchuck chuck” isn’t all that accurate because a woodchuck doesn’t chuck on any sort of wood, and in fact its name doesn’t relate to the woods at all. It got its official title from early English settlers who corrupted the Native American (Algonquian) name for this ground-dwelling rodent they called “wuchak”. Woodchucks actually prefer more open ground and due to the settlement process of this country that cleared forests to make way for agriculture, it would be to the woodchuck’s advantage. There is little doubt more woodchucks … Read More
The Amazing Hummingbird Way of Life
Several years back, when my wife Ginny and I visited an Embera Indian village along a river in the Panama jungle during mid-March while on a side trip during a Caribbean cruise, we saw an amazing multitude of beautiful butterflies and dragonflies, as well as plenty of colorful hummingbirds, even involving many different species we had never seen before. Ginny purchased a delicate, wooden hummingbird that had been hand-carved by the Embera tribal leader, and this is because the hummingbird is a tiny migratory bird which is very dear to our hearts, and we look … Read More
Exploration Adventures in Yooper-land
There is a unique sense of entering an isolated, slower-paced and back-to-nature atmosphere after crossing the Mackinac bridge into the Upper Peninsula. At least that is the way it is with my wife, Ginny, and me. Our destination was Baraga, where the Michigan Outdoor Writers Association (MOWA) was holding its annual conference at the Baraga Lakeside Inn, which is located right on the shore of Lake Superior and offers great accommodation and food (the meals prepared by chef Doug Smith were outstanding). Baraga is located on Lake Superior near the southeast corner of the Keweenaw … Read More
Those Sudden Surprises In The Great Outdoors
Last summer, I was feeding my horses in an outside manger and a leaf of hay fell on the ground. I bent down to pick it up, and yellow jackets suddenly came swarming out from underneath the manger and began stinging the left side of my face. Well, folks, that will wake you right up! One even zapped me near my left eye. When I looked in the mirror the following morning with my right eye, it wasn’t a pretty sight at all. The left side of my face was swollen, the left eye sealed … Read More
The Legend of “Mrs. T” lives on – Snappers with a purpose!
The original Mrs. T was so named many years ago due to her scrunched-up facial resemblance to Mr. T and his ever-present scowl. If you recall, Mr. T starred in the 1980’s action series, The A Team. Thus, we are many generations removed, yet her legend lives on through her progeny. Memorial Day Weekend fell a few days early this year, and as such, the annual journey of snapping turtles to attempt the continuation of their species took place a few days after, on May 28 and 29. And so I was blessed to observe … Read More
“Busy As A Bee” Season
After a quiet winter, at least in respect to wildlife, there’s a lot of buzz going on in the outdoors, and I don’t mean the bees or gossip. As I go for my almost daily walks, I never cease to hear or see something that fills me with wonder. I often hear what I refer to as the percussion section, with a well-played drumroll from an unseen partridge, let’s call him Danny from the Partridge Family (Okay, I’m dating myself here.) This soft drumroll also reminds me of the days when I could hear the … Read More
- Page 1 of 2
- 1
- 2