Get Out!

Get Out!

• Sing along with Emmy Award-winning singer/songwriters Jan and George Syrigos at Nature’s Superheroes With Wildheart. Cape Girardeau Conservation Nature Center. May 6, 7-8 p.m.
• For more information, call 573-290-5218.
• Discover and explore the importance of butterflies and caterpillars with Pipevine the toy caterpillar in Butterfly Magic with The Fishin’ Magicians. Powder Valley Conservation Nature Center. May 13, 7 p.m. Register at 314-301-1500.
• Become a skilled archer at Conservation Kids: Archery (ages 7-12 only). Springfield Conservation Nature Center. May 26, 6-7:30 p.m. All equipment provided. Register at 417-888-4237.
• Learn about the little water critters that live in Jacks Fork River at Nature Nuts: Macroinvertebrate Mayhem. Twin Pines Conservation Education Center in Winona. June 18, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Register at 573-325-1381.
• At Sharing Nature with Dad, we’ll take a hike and then create a craft especially for Dad. Walter Woods Conservation Area in Joplin. June 14, 6-7:30 p.m. Register at 417-629-3423.

May and June are great months to get outside and explore nature! Listen and watch for these natural events.

• May 14 - Watch for lightning bugs on warm evenings.
• May 19 - Listen for cricket frogs. Their calls sound like small pebbles being struck rapidly together.
• May 22 - Antlers begin to grow on white-tailed deer bucks.
• June 7 - Raspberries begin ripening - yum!
• June 14 - Watch for birds carrying food to their young.
• June 26 - Watch for nonvenomous northern watersnakes basking near water.

Looking for more ways to have fun outside? Find out about Discover Nature programs in your area at mdc.mo.gov/events.

What Is It?

• I appear in the spring as two fuzzy buttons.
• I soon branch out and grow inches per week.
• My outside is soft, but my inside is hard.
• I’m good in a fight, but I easily bleed.

Every year, bucks grow a new set of antlers. They start as "buttons" covered in fuzzy, tender, blood-rich skin called velvet. Actually bones, these buttons can grow at a rate of 2 inches per week! When they stop growing in late August, the velvet peels away, and the bone hardens. Bucks fight with their antlers in fall, and then shed them.