The Dahlem Environmental Education Center

05/29/2026

I took a walk through the oak woods hoping to catch a glimpse of the barred owl. Instead, I discovered a honeybee hive high in a tree. It's a big spacious home perfect for a Queen and her family.



Video provided by C. Benham

05/27/2026

You can tell what a bird eats by looking at its face for one second. The bill is the tool. The shape is the job description.

The cardinal's thick conical bill is a seed crusher — built to crack sunflower shells with force. The chickadee's thin pointed bill is a pair of precision tweezers — picking caterpillars and spiders off leaves one at a time. Same feeder. Completely different equipment.

🌿 The nighthawk is the one that stops people. Her mouth opens wider than her head — a scoop that catches moths in mid-flight. She's not pecking. She's flying with her mouth open and filtering the air.

The heron's bill is a dagger. She stands still for twenty minutes, then strikes faster than you can track — spearing fish, frogs, and mice from the shallows. The woodpecker's bill is a chisel, hammering into bark to extract larvae hidden inside.

The crow's bill does everything adequately and nothing perfectly — seeds, fruit, insects, garbage. The generalist tool for the generalist bird.

Eight bill shapes. Eight diets. The bird at the feeder already told you what she eats — you just have to look at the tool she brought 👀 🤔

05/26/2026

A handy trick for a ground-nesting bird!

05/25/2026

05/20/2026

The honeybee gets the attention. These eight do most of the work.

Native bees pollinate earlier in spring, fly in cooler weather, and visit flowers honeybees skip entirely. Most of them nest in the ground or in hollow stems — not in hives. Most of them can't sting you. And most of them are in your yard right now without you knowing it.

The metallic green one on the coneflower is a sweat bee. The one cutting perfect circles from your rose leaves is a leafcutter. The large one hovering near the deck is a carpenter bee — and the males can't sting at all.

05/19/2026

Spring is an extremely busy season as Dahlem hosts school field trips for preschool through 5th grade students nearly every day. We are grateful for teachers expanding their studies to the outdoors. The best classrooms have no walls. Here's a quick look at several activities.

Sending out a big Thank You! to the volunteer trail leaders who assisted our Naturalist Educator. They are invaluable and appreciated beyond words. We love our volunteers!

05/14/2026

Thank you for making the first Jackson Give$ and Community Impact Day a success! Dahlem is thankful for the support from TRUE Community Credit Union's volunteers and our donors! Not only did we reach our goal, but we surpassed it with matching funds! TRUE Community Credit Union brought their A-Team on May 13, 2026 and cleared approximately 10 acres of invasive species, securing 800 feet of community garden fencing and weeding garden pathways. Thank You!

https://www.jacksongives.org/organizations/dahlem-centr