Tufted Titmouse – Backyard Beauty

Are your backyard bird feeders empty?  Fill them up, and within minutes the tufted titmice will appear!

These gregarious little birds are common year round to all of Georgia, and as such are sometimes overlooked in favor of more showy birds like cardinals or bluebirds.  But take another look at these little guys.  Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s webpage describes them as having “large black eyes and a brushy crest that gives these birds a quiet, but eager expression that matches the way they flit through canopies, hang from tree limbs, and drop in on birdfeeders.”

Feeding Winter Birds

Downy Woodpecker

Here’s a great nature activity for those cold winter days when a warm house and a cup of cocoa are more appealing than heading out for a hike.

Try hanging a suet feeder on a tree that you can see from your window, and then pull up a chair and watch the show!

Woodpeckers are particularly fond of suet, and in this area you can expect to see downy, hairy, and red-bellied woodpeckers and also their cousins the yellow-bellied sapsuckers and flickers.

Have you “liked” Elachee’s Facebook Page?

How to avoid missing Facebook Page posts
(Hey…who hid the Page posts?)

When you first “like” a Facebook page, posts from that page appear in your newsfeed. With time they became less frequent, eventually disappearing entirely. Crazy thing? The page has nothing to do with that disappearing act.

It’s due to EdgeRank, a less-than-warm-n-fuzzy algorithm program Facebook uses to determine what you get to see…and what you don’t. (Translated: Unless you frequently visit “liked” pages, as well as click on, share, or “like” their posts, EdgeRank stops including them in your newsfeed. Well written posts that don’t require a click-through end up penalizing the page. And the fan.)

This link will walk you through the steps to help reclaim those missing page posts, putting you squarely back in the driver’s seat.

http://www.alwaysupward.com/facebook_helpers/Get_Your_FB_Page_Posts_Back.pdf

Elachee Fall Plant Sale

Pre-Order Native Plant Sale

Order Sept. 10th-24th
Plant Pickup Oct 4th, 1-6 pm

Features plants and shrubs that attract butterflies, birds, and wildlife to the home garden or backyard. Many of the plants are natives or hybrids of natives, selected to help you beautify your landscape and attract welcome wildlife, birds, butterflies, and hummingbirds. This is a unique plant list, since many of these species are not likely to be at your neighborhood garden center. We select only high quality plants from reputable wholesale growers.

View/Print the Plant List & Order Form or Purchase Online.

Elachee Expanding Menu of Preschool Programs!

Elachee Nature Science Center is cooking up some new ways to feed children’s boundless natural curiosity.

It started with our menu of Preschool Summer Camps and has grown to a full course of programs for parents and preschoolers – the new Mommy and Me at Elachee program for 2- and 3-year-olds, the return of Elachee Explorers for 4- to 5-year-olds, and the opening of our long-awaited Nature Preschool in the fall of 2013.

Elachee…By the Numbers

1 Recipient of the Cox Enterprises Conservation Heroes award to our volunteer Lane Hurst for his extensive efforts in teaching children and helping maintain our trails in the Preserve.

 

 

5 Most requested school field trip programs are Starlab/Astronomy for Middle School, Lake Lanier Aquatic Study, Lessons from  the Cherokee, Habitats and Adaptations and Habitat is Home.

Venus Transit

After a day of rain and cloudy skies, the clouds parted just in time for a terrific evening for viewing the transit of Venus across the sun on Tuesday, June 5th.

Volunteers from Elachee, the North Georgia Astronomy Club and Gainesville College manned several telescopes giving participants multiple views of this historic event not to be replayed in our lifetime.