A Love of Nature

➞ There’s a reason Milwaukee is known as the Good Land. Sometimes, you can’t miss our natural beauty, like when you’re staring out at a sparkling Lake Michigan. Other times, it sneaks up on you, like when you’re walking along a quiet forest trail. Here are just a few places to focus on your natural surroundings.

The Schlitz Audubon Nature Center hugs Lake Michigan’s shore, offering 185 acres of wetlands, forest, and restored prairie to explore. It’s also a bird-viewing paradise, with more than 250 different species sighted there since 1974. The center even provides a home to 15 raptors - including eagles, hawks, owls, and falcons - as part of an educational program.

With outposts at Riverside Park, Washington Park, and the Menomonee Valley, the Urban Ecology Center’s goal is to simply get more people outside more often. They teach hands-on classes about science, nature, and sustainability. They organize volunteer cleanup and restoration projects. The center even loans out equipment, such as canoes, kayaks, bicycles, and winter gear.

The Wehr Nature Center features 220 acres of natural beauty in Whitnall Park. The nature preserve and education center is open year-round, and you can walk more than 5 miles of trails around Mallard Lake and through savanna, woodlands, and wetlands.

The earliest version of the Mitchell Park Domes horticulture observatory opened to the public in 1899. Lady Bird Johnson dedicated the modern, iconic version of the three domes in 1965. Today, they transport you into tropical and desert living general store” that includes its own potting bar. You can walk in, choose from their selection of houseplants, and watch as they pot it right in front of you, complete with organic potting soil and other potting materials. Your friends will be green with envy.