Stage Nature Center – Oakland County Blog

WILDER SIDE OF OAKLAND COUNTY

“The wild requires that we learn the terrain, nod to all the plants and animal and birds, ford the streams and cross the ridges, and tell a good story when we get back home.” That sentence comes from The Practice of the Wild, a captivating book of essays by Gary Snyder that shares his thoughts on wildlife, wilderness and the world. It often came to mind on major nature-embracing adventures such as the ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro, a week of backpacking on the Appalachian Trail, or a month on South Manitou Island. Last Sunday morning it came to mind in a place I would never have expected: the City of Troy, the 11th largest city in Michigan by population and the largest city in Oakland County, a region I equate with office buildings, upscale shopping plazas, landscapes of flatness and the constant din of traffic. Continue reading →

“Imagine a place within a busy city, where shady swamps harbor endangered spotted turtles, ancient reptiles whose dark shells glow with spots of brilliant yellow, gliding just below the water’s surface. Then imagine moving a short distance into a glacial lakeplain prairie, with fields of native grasses and flowers from the time when the glaciers last melted from the land of Southeast Michigan.”

Those words first appeared in the Summer 2000 issue of the Oakland Land Conservancy newsletter in reference to a parcel of undeveloped land on the north side of Square Lake Road between John R and Dequindre in the highly urbanized City of Troy. Fast forward to May 2018. Efforts of the former Oakland Land Conservancy, which eventually merged with other conservancies, and finally morphed into the Six Rivers Land Conservancy finally bore fruit in the form of the new Turtle Woods Preserve. Continue reading →