Field trips

Come join other MNNPS members for part of a day exploring granite bedrock outcrops found throughout Quarry Park SNA as well as high quality wet meadow, wet prairie, oak woodland, and oak forest. This mix of communities supports rare birds and orchids and forms the most significant remaining example of the granite bedrock outcrop community in central Minnesota.

FIELD TRIP IS FULL. Come and enjoy a shady hike through the forests of Falls Creek SNA for a morning of fern identification with Barb Delaney. Falls Creek SNA is one of the most diverse natural areas remaining in Washington County. Folded and faulted rocks at this site show the largest displacement of any known Paleozoic rocks in Minnesota, revealing Decorah, Platteville, Glenwood, and St. Peter formations. Steep ravines line the intermittently active stream beds.

Black Lake Bog Scientific and Natural Area (SNA) is in rural eastern Pine County, approximately 2.5 hours north of St. Paul and 1 hour south of Duluth. The SNA is part of a larger interstate natural area encompassing more than 3,600 acres in Pine County, MN and Douglas County, WI.

Our focus will be on updating and expanding the plant list for the site, but other activities could focus on insect or bird inventory or taking GPS points of the boundary signs depending on group time and interest. As parking is limited and the site remote, we will likely choose a meeting place along I-35 or Hwy 23 and carpool.

Larix WMA is located in the extreme southern portion of the Minnesota aspen parkland. It is a large undeveloped wooded WMA, which is immediately adjacent to the Gully Fen SNA and contains many of the same habitat types. Its location in the Glacial Lake Agassiz Lake plain is notable as it is located just north of the high beach ridge at Gully. The Larix WMA is one of the true treasures of the MN DNR Wildlife Management Area lands in terms of native plant communities and rare plant species. This area is where east meets west and includes several very unique plant communities including calcareous fen, tamarack seepage swamp, and rich fen.

FIELD TRIP IS FULL. Co-sponsored by Minnesota School of Botanical Art and Minnesota Native Plant Society.

Botanical Artists: Explore the morphology of native plants under various growing conditions in several habitats; sketching in the field. Develop your palette of color samples, learn proper methods of plant collection and photography to assure realistic depictions.

Plant lovers: Explore new locations of fens, prairies, and rock outcrops. Shalom Hill Farm lies in the center of a circle of at least 15 potential destinations to be selected depending on the conditions of the season. These include upland prairies, rock outcrops, “waterfalls,” mesic prairies, and wetland complexes with calcareous fens. Two prime publicly owned forests are a little over an hour away.

Come explore the north unit of Hastings Sand Coulee SNA just outside the city of Hastings in Dakota County. The SNA protects high quality native dry sand-gravel prairie, mesic prairie, oak woodland and oak forest in an area otherwise dominated by agricultural land use and expanding housing developments.

Enjoy a morning hike into Interstate State Park, Wisconsin's oldest state park. See bedrock prairie, oak woodlands, white pine-hardwood forest, spring-fed creek, shady, basalt talus slopes lush with mosses and ferns. Please consider bringing a lunch and hiking the stunning bluff trails overlooking the St. Croix River in the afternoon.

Digital dragonflies in an analog world? Join us for a different kind of field trip with a focus on dragonflies. We will spend about a half hour in the classroom reviewing dragonflies and then spend about an hour out in the wetland looking for dragonflies, taking their photos when we can get them to pose and netting those that do not want to pose.

Come join other MNNPS members for a return trip to Quarry Park SNA to explore the granite bedrock outcrops found throughout the SNA as well as high quality wet meadow, wet prairie, oak woodland, and oak forest plant communities. This mix of natural communities supports rare birds and orchids and forms the most significant remaining example of the granite bedrock outcrop community in central Minnesota.

Come join Steve Eggers and other MNNPS members for a day of wetland plant identification canoeing through the unique plant communities of Weaver Bottoms. Weaver Bottoms is located on the Upper Mississippi River within the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge. This 5,500 acre habitat complex includes areas of open water, flowing channels, backwater lakes, isolated wetlands and forested wetlands.