Let's Talk Winter
The shortest day of the year, December 21st in 2024
What is the winter solstice?
Crunchy snack made from a sister variety of Ohio's 6th largest agricultural export
What is popcorn?
The "father" of Mill Creek Park
Who is Volney Rogers?
"Black-capped" feeder bird whose call resembles its own name
What is a chickadee?
Organisms like insects and fungi that break down dead plant and animal matter and recycle it back into the ecosystem
What are decomposers?
One of our region's few true hibernators, famous for predicting the weather (over in PA); we also have one here that burrows under the bird feeders outside Nancy's Nook
What is a groundhog?
A misnomer for the tulip tree, which actually belongs to the magnolia family
What is a (tulip) poplar?
The oldest and smallest of Mill Creek Park's three man-made lakes
What is Lake Cohasset?
The name of the family who donated the buildings and property that the nature center currently occupies
What is Ford?
Mill Creek MetroParks' premier evergreen species, for which Lake Cohasset is named
What is hemlock?
Where freshwater turtles spend most of the cold months
What is the bottom of the pond/lake?
Ecological state in which the number of individuals in an environment exceeds its carrying capacity
What is overpopulation?
First name of the man for whom Lanternman's Mill is named?
What is German?
The largest of Ohio's four native squirrel species, which owes half of its name to another forest critter
What is a fox squirrel?
Ohio's earliest-blooming native wildflower, which shares part of its name with a stinky, black and white mammal
What is skunk cabbage?
Process by which chickadees are able to quickly warm up on winter mornings (humans do this too, but we are not as efficient about it)
What is shivering?
Members of the Papaveraceae flower family of which two species are native to Ohio
What are poppies?
The "dwarf" tree immortalized in statue form alongside the Father of Mill Creek Park
What is a whitethorn/hawthorn tree?
"Topsy-turvy" feeder bird with a thin beak and gray, white, and black plumage
What is a nuthatch?
One of the two symbiotic components of a lichen
What is fungi/algae?