Congratulations Jay C. Hormel Nature Center

A new era in nature

By Jason Schoonover

O

jason.schoonover@austindailyherald.com

n April 22, Austin started a new era by opening its new Jay C. Hormel Nature Center interpretive center. A month later, nature center staff are still settling into the new $7 million building and getting used to its new educational exhibits, but one thing is for sure: It’s still a hit.

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AUSTIN DAILY HERALD – JAY C. HORMEL NATURE CENTER

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Friends plan next projects after center opens

By Pete Mattson

Friends of the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center

We Friends of the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center are happy that we could help with the new interpretive center project. We were able to pay for the initial concept and design work to get the project started. The Hormel Foundation, Hormel Foods Corp. and the city of Austin paid for the building and furnishings. Friends took care of the exhibits.

We used some funds from earlier donations and asked for new support from the community. That support came through, and you’ll see the $1 million result on your next visit.

Friends was established in 1988. Mary Lou Stursa presented the idea for the group.

Dick Nordin was the first board president.

We have a 12-member board, with two new members coming on each year. So over our 29-year history, something like 58 of your friends and neighbors have served on the Friends board.

Friends pays for the naturalist intern position with proceeds from the Thanksgiving Feast fundraiser each fall. We’re helping the city to phase in the cost of the new full-time naturalist job, and we pay for other extra help as needed. Over the years we’ve also been able to buy land, sign it over to the

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city, and restore it to prairie and woodland.

Friends pays for the nature center’s free programming.

I’d like to tell you about a project that’s underway now. In 2016, we got a $146,000 Conservation Partners Legacy grant for restoration work on the north end, north of the tower. The money comes from the conserva-

tion sales tax we voters approved a few years ago. The Lessard Sams Outdoor Heritage Council approves the grants and the DNR administers the program. The grant covers 90 percent of the three-year cost. Friends will pay the balance. A contractor is doing the work.

We’ll plant prairie and oak savanna on

The Friends of the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center are planning their next projects after helping raise funds for the new interpretive center. Photo provided

50 acres purchased a few years ago. That will get done whenever it dries out enough to get in there and do the work. The seed mix has 110 locally sourced native species.

That’s a lot of species. We’ll also plant 50 burr oak saplings to start a new oak savanna area.

The project will also remove invasive species from about 20 acres of woods on the north end. Most woods in our area are overrun by European buckthorn and tartarian honeysuckle, and parts of the nature center are no exception. These species aren’t native to this area, have no natural enemies, and are very prolific seed-makers, so they’re invasive and hard to wipe out. The contractor grinds up the invasives, plants native grasses and flowers in the cleared areas among the native trees, and will use chemical to kill the seedlings that come up this summer. After that, the flowers and grasses compete with the invasives and we’ll use planned burns for ongoing control. We did a trial area three years ago and it works.

Community support makes Friends’ work possible. We hope you’ll continue your generous financial and volunteer support for the good things that will be happening in the future.

AUSTIN DAILY HERALD – JAY C. HORMEL NATURE CENTER

Continued from Page 1 “It’s been great,” Director Luke Reese said.

“There’s been a lot of people out here enjoying it.”

Workers from Split Rock Studios from Arden Hills, Minnesota, constructed new exhibits that are a mesh of new designs and the previous exhibits. The exhibits highlight the creatures of the night, the prairie, the forest, wetlands and much more.

Artists from Split Rock created large murals that wrap around a diorama; in one case, a mural from the current center was dismantled and incorporated, seamlessly, into a new, larger, mural, thanks to the artist’s talents. The nature scenes are lively and bright. And, you cannot see where the older painting ends and the new begins.

The exhibits have proved a hit so far with the public, according to Reese. At the old interpretive center, Reese said the center would be relatively slow on rainy days. But now, families are using the new building to get out and about.

“This has turned into a rainy day destination for families,” Reese said Reese said he and staff are still getting used to the new space and just learning about the new building.

The early childhood room has gotten the most usage to date, as children are using it a lot and enjoying that space.

The new building replaced the old center, which was built in 1975. While it served well, it was known the building could never be replaced or changed. It was grandfathered in at its location in a flight path for the Austin Municipal Airport, but understood it could never be expanded.

The old interpretive center was taken down a few weeks later, and Reese, who worked as an intern at the old building, admits he had a bit of a funny feeling when he saw the building come down as he worked with a class of third-graders by the pond.

Despite the nostalgia with the old building, Reese said the new building has been a hit.

“Change is a good thing and nature is chang-

People begin gathering before the ribbon cutting for the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center’s interpretive center. Eric Johnson/photodesk@austindailyherald.com ing all the time,” Reese said, adding that the trees that people love will fall down and new trees will replace them.

The new building also incorporates solar and several environmentally friendly techniques.

“It is a very efficient building,” Reese said.

But one feature has attracted the most questions. Reese is frequently asked about the grey-dotted windows for the bird-resistant glass.

The new interpretive center is a culmination of a concept that began four years ago under former director/naturalist Larry Dolphin.

“The exhibits are well worth the walk through,” Dolphin said. “There are a lot of learning experiences available.”

AUSTIN DAILY HERALD – JAY C. HORMEL NATURE CENTER

A $5 million grant from the Hormel Foundation got things moving, he said. Then, $500,000 was received from the city of Austin, $300,000 from Hormel Foods Corp. and more than $1.2 million raised through the Friends of the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center.

“People are very happy with it,” Reese said.

The general contractor for the project was Met-Con Companies Construction Services of Faribault, and Split Rock Studios of St. Paul handled the exhibits. ISG is the company that designed the space.

—Deb Nicklay and Mike Stoll contributed to this report.

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EXHIBITS OF THE LAND Nature center visitors get a fresh look at the world around them with new exhibits The lobby

Story by Jason Schoonover

Immediately inside the new interpretive center is a small theater where a 10-minute video on the nature center will play when visitors hit a button. It will tell of Jay Hormel and his interest in nature and trees and how it led to him forming an arboretum that would eventually become the nature center. Beside that is a statue of Hormel planting a tree, along with information about “the man and his plan” in front of a painted mural.

In front of Hormel, a globe — which will turn 15 degrees once each hour to rotate completely once a day — will hang with a light representing the sun. Material around the earth model will provide educational details about the earth and the importance of the sun.

“We wanted to put the history of the earth in some perspective,” Reese said, noting that humanity on Earth is just a blip in a long history.

That ties in with a panel on climate change and how humans have affected the earth in a short period of time since the industrial revolution.

A wall on the east side across from a large fireplace thanks the donors who contributed a total of more than $1 million for the exhibits.

J

ay C. Hormel Nature Center staff have a challenge for you while touring the center’s new interpretive center: Try to spot all the critters in the exhibits, especially in the murals and inside and outside of a large cottonwood tree at the center of the exhibits.

Some will be easy to spot; others will be much more difficult, like a sculpted bat somewhere on the cottonwood tree.

“There’s a bat in a place where This story appears in the May-June edition of you can see it if you look very Austin Living. carefully,” Director Luke Reese said.

“Many of the sculpted animals are a little bit hard to spot,” naturalist Maria Anderson added.

The exhibits are at the heart of the nature center’s beautiful new interpretive center, which opened April 22, 2017. Staff says the exhibits aim to be interactive and challenge visitors to be attentive and observant. Reese says the exhibits are designed to tie in and reinforce all the things visitors may see during walks through the center’s habitats.

“We really want it to be a connection to what they’re going to see out on the land,” Reese said.

The interpretive center aims to educate visitors about the forest, wetland and prairie of the center.

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Prairie

This globe turns a full circle each day and features information about the Earth.

Jason Schoonover/jason.schoonover@austindailyherald.com

Reese estimates about 70 percent of the nature center’s land is prairie, so the prairie exhibit helps bring people up close and personal to the prairie.

A centerpiece is a painting that Split Rock Studios, the project’s general contractor, taken from the old interpretive center and expanded into a larger, curved mural.

AUSTIN DAILY HERALD – JAY C. HORMEL NATURE CENTER

“That mural is probably one of my favorite features of the whole exhibit,” Reese said. “It’s just a beautiful work of art.”

Below the mural is a sculpted prairie scene that people can crawl under, where roots are visible, and come up in the middle of the exhibit in two domes, like a prairie gopher or other critter might.

“I think that’ll be a favorite area,” Anderson said.

The exhibit will feature a taxidermied bison calf and other sculpted animals, along with information on prairie plants, their roots and more.

The giant cottonwood

One of the centerpieces of the exhibits is a giant, sculpted cottonwood that visitors can go inside and hunt for that hard-to-find sculpted bat and other critters on the outside.

The tree stretches into other exhibits, like the forest exhibit, and features a turkey and woodpeckers on its bark and branches.

The tree also has a pull-out drawer that features tree rings and tells how to gauge a tree’s age.

Forest

The forest scene is made to look like a branch has fallen off the large cottonwood. That branch features spots where the bark opens to show what’s under the bark of a tree.

The forest exhibit also features a mural and several sculpted or taxidermied critters to spot.

In that display, two terrariums will house the nature center’s snakes and salamander.

The exhibit also features other animal sounds and a scat-matching station, along with a taxidermied fawn and ruffed grouse.

Raptors

Two windows on the southwest side of the center will display Guka, the nature center’s barred owl, in one pen and two new red-tailed hawks, Sha and Wiyaka, in another area. The birds, all flightless after accidents or injuries, will be visible from the inside and outside, though blinds will occasionally be closed to give them privacy.

The exhibit will also feature a large, sculpted eagle talon and a machine that casts the silhouettes of birds on the wall or carpet, along with several educational panels.

Education blips

Zoe Dolan Peterson sticks her head up through one of the domes on the prairie display at the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center’s new intpretive center Saturday. Eric Johnson/photodesk@austindailyherald.com

Creatures of the night

A creatures of the night exhibit gives visitors a taste of what it’s like to be in the center at night, which people can do each week since the center is open until 10 p.m.

Reese hopes it will help people past any fear or apprehension around nature at night.

“A lot of people are nervous to go out for a hike in the woods at night,” Reese said. “So this maybe gives them an opportunity to experience what they might experience out there, what they may be afraid to experience out there. Hopefully, it will demystify some of the fear of being out at night.”

Anderson calls this one of the featured exhibits, which was an idea of retired Director/Naturalist Larry Dolphin after he saw a similar exhibit at another center.

The exhibit features low lighting, night sounds of the nature center and sculpted critters. It also includes a lit moon and the Big Dipper constellation. Dolphin tells the story of the Big Dipper on a recording that can be A large sculpted cottonwood anchors several exhibits and features its own educational pieces. played at the push of a button.

“His voice is literally in the building,” Jason Schoonover Reese said.

Along the east and north walls of the exhibits, a geologic timeline depicting earth’s 4.5 billion years of history will be on display for visitors.

“That was pretty neat to work on,” Reese said.

Then around the center, other displays will discuss the nature center’s solar energy arrays, its energy-efficient light bulbs, its geothermal system, its low-water toilets and faucets, its bird glass — which features dots for birds to better see the glass — and more.

AUSTIN DAILY HERALD – JAY C. HORMEL NATURE CENTER

Dragonflies

This exhibit will feature a large dragonfly head that people

can put their own head inside to see how a dragonfly’s eyes see, along with informational panels on dragonflies.

Wetland

The wetland exhibit will highlight the macroinvertebrates children may encounter when scooping the pond, along with a terrarium with painted turtles, a mural of a pond scene and taxidermied ducks. The exhibit also features a large turtle shell people can sit on and crawl through, which staff say could be a favorite spot for photos.

Early childhood room

The new early childhood room is a gateway to fun for youngsters, and they can even enter through a hole in the door, which is designed to look like the bark of tree.

The room offers plenty of fun and educational exhibits, and a mural offers youngsters a chance to spot many painted critters, some from a treehouse built out from the north wall.

“Lots of critters and plants to look for,” Anderson said.

At a puzzle table, kids can put together and take apart a picture of a great blue heron and a deer. With the pieces on, it’s a picture of the two animals. With them off, it shows the skeleton of the animals.

A puppet theater stage will offer kids the chance to stage puppet shows, and there will be a spot where children can do Crayon rubs. A bird watching station features binoculars and information about commonly spotted birds by west-facing windows.

Dolphin’s presence is felt just outside the early childhood room with a picture and a quote he commonly used in his three decades at the center: “For the wild ones and the little ones.”

“This project wouldn’t have happened without Larry’s passion for this place,” said Reese, Dolphin’s successor.

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Jay C. Hormel Nature Center timeline 1927: Jay C. Hormel plants the first of the 200,000 trees he will plant on his land for more than 25 years on what would later become the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center.

1971: The city of Austin acquires 123 acres around the Jay C. Hormel estate and a plan begins for the development of the Nature Center. The Jay C. Hormel Nature Center is founded.

1974: Richard Birger is hired as the Nature Center’s first director.

1975: U.S. Senator Hubert Humphrey speaks at the dedication of the Nature Jay and Germaine Hormel Center’s interpretative building, which still stands today.

1978: Fifty-five acres of land is added to the Nature Center. Vince Shay is hired as the second director.

1984: The Nature Center expands by 101 acres.

1985: A 125 ton gneiss rock, a glacial erratic is moved 1.5 miles from Todd Park to the Nature Center.

1988: Larry Dolphin is hired as the third director.

1989: The Friends of the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center, a nonprofit organization, is established.

1992: Margaret Beck makes a sizable donation for the Ruby Rupner Auditorium and a series of environmental programs. The Jacques Chipault handicapped access trail is dedicated.

1994: The Ruby Rupner Auditorium is built and dedicated.

1996: The Nature Center celebrates its 25th anniversary with guest speaker Nina Leopold Bradley.

2002: The Friends of the Nature Center successfully fundraise to acquire 210 acres to add land north of the tower. The Nature Center currently has 507 acres and more than 10 miles of trail.

2013: Nature Center leaders announce plans to build new interpretive center.

2014: Hormel Foundation agrees to give $5-million grant to help fund the $7-million project.

2015: The maintenance shop is taken down and moved, and a new entrance is build. Excavation starts on the interpretive center site.

2016: Construction on the interpretive center begins. Director Larry Dolphin retires Aug. 31 after 28 years on the job. Luke Reese is hired as the new director and starts Aug. 24.

2017: The completed interpretive center is dedicated on Earth Day, April 22.

Back on the perch Story and photos by Eric Johnson

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hen the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center officially unveiled its new interpretive center to the community and area, all those new displays, bells and whistles weren’t the only new additions. Visitors were introduced to Sha and Wiyaka, a pair of redtailed hawks it acquired from the Indiana Raptor Center, out of Nashville, Indiana.

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The four directors of the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center pose for a photo together during a sneak peek of the new interpretive center. Pictured, from left, are: Richard Birger, Vince Shay, Larry Dolphin and Luke Reese. Deb Nicklay/deb.nicklay@austindailyherald.com

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AUSTIN DAILY HERALD – JAY C. HORMEL NATURE CENTER

Jay C. Nature center welcomes back the presence of hawks From Page 6 Both hawks were in the care of the center after being struck by cars. Sha, a male, and Wiyaka, a female, will follow in the educational footsteps of Red, a red-tail hawk that passed away in 2013 after 33 years with the nature center.

Finding new roommates

There was never any question with nature center staff after Red died of getting another hawk. The long-lived raptor, thought to be one of the oldest captive hawks in the state at 35-years-old, was an invaluable connection for visitors to the world around them for the 33 years Red was with them.

So when Red died, the nature center put word out that they were looking for another hawk, but they couldn’t act immediately. At the time, plans were firmly on the move toward raising funds for the new interpretive center and building it.

In August of 2016 the nature center was contacted by Patti Reynolds and Laura Edmund of the Indiana Raptor Center.

However, two hawks weren’t in the initial plan.

“We were only interested in one, but they asked if we would take both,” said officer manager Julie Champlin, who was also the primary handler of Red. “Both had been in vehicle collisions and were housed together when they were brought in.”

New Jay C. Hormel Nature Center Director Luke Reese then went before the park board to float the idea of acquiring both rather than just one.

Recognizing that it was kind of a sin to separate them after spending so much time together, the park board OK’d the move.

Hurdles along the way

Sha and Wiyaka eventually arrived at the nature center late on Good Friday, but not without some trials along the way.

After agreeing to take the new hawks [Minnesota Department of Natural Resources regulations doesn’t allow for the purchasing of birds], the nature center took over financial care through Friends of the Nature Center while the hawks waited to be transferred, which was anything but easy.

“We kept trying to set up time for them to fly out here,” Champlin said.

But hurdle after hurdle kept delaying them

until finally at just after 10:30 p.m., Champlin was able to pick up Sha and Wiyaka at the airport in Minneapolis.

But even then, things were not easy. As Champlin took possession of the hawks and was leaving the airport, Wiyaka, fed up with being confined to an adapted dog kennel for hours, started bucking and acting up. Along the way several people stopped the small airport caravan, asking what was in the kennel that could be causing so much commotion.

“She was not happy about being in that dog carrier,” Champlin said.

The crew arrived at the nature center just after midnight and then hunkered down for a late night as Champlin had to get the hawks acclimated to the new surroundings, turning on all the lights in the place so they both could see perches and the various points of their new containment area.

“They just looked at us like, ‘Where are we now?’” Champlin said with a laugh.

An important educational tool

It must be made clear that Sha, Wiyaka and the center’s resident barred owl Guka, are not pets. They are a connection to our world and the natural world.

Each year, the DNR stipulates so many hours of educational programming must come from the birds, something the nature center is more than willing to do.

It’s always been the aim to get people as acquainted as possible to the world around them as much as possible and these birds, so close to visitors as they walk through, is key to that.

“The nature center has a strong focus on birds of prey,” Champlin said. “People get attracted to large birds they can see driving down Interstate 90. Part of our educational mission is to utilize the birds to teach people to appreciate nature.”

Each January, Champlin is required by the DNR to report the time the birds are used to hit a mandated number of hours for educational purposes.

Not that it’s that hard to incorporate. The birds are one of the most popular draws to the nature center because of that access. The first weekend the new interpretive center was opened, Champlin estimates 1,000 people saw the birds and to date that estimate has grown to 2,500 to 3,000.

All to get that special touch from nature.

“We love teaching about their special skills.”

AUSTIN DAILY HERALD – JAY C. HORMEL NATURE CENTER

Wiyaka and Sha sit on a perch in their new home at the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center.

Eric Johnson/photodesk @austindailyherald.com

What do their names mean?

While Sha and Wiyaka provide a special bridge to nature for visitors they also are representative of the species itself.

Both names are Lakota words. Sha means red, and Wiyaka means feather.

Can they mate?

The short answer is yes, but not in this case.

Both Sha and Wiyaka are capable, but they would only mate if nesting materials were introduced.

“Red-tail hawks have a big courtship process,” Julie Champlin said.

“The males would do a big dance, help build a nest, show it can bring food.”

Champlin explained that Red was given nesting materials, but because he was the only one, it was more an effort to give him something to do and cure boredom.

It also comes down to space and resources. The nature center just can’t provide enough resources to care for a breeding pair of hawks.

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AUSTIN DAILY HERALD – JAY C. HORMEL NATURE CENTER