Public Presentations and Meetings

Wild Ones - North Oakland County Chapter Membership Meeting

December 15th meeting cancelled for the holiday

Friends of the Johnson Nature Center

"Friends" Annual Meeting

Saturday, January 22nd, at 11 AM
featuring a special presentation, “Invasive Plants: Uninvited Michigan Garden guests and How to Manage Them” by Master Gardener Mihaela Cobb

Terrain of Thought

Bird Talk

Christmas Bird Count (CBC)

December is the month of the annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC). Bird lovers have been counting birds on any one day in December since 1900 and submitting their lists to the National Audubon Society, which compiles them. You can start your own CBC by counting birds in your yard, neighborhood, or favorite park. Write down the date, time, and weather to your count list. Keep it somewhere that you can find it, and then next year do a count and compare the new list to last year's. Good luck!

Naturalist Notes 

Don't Bee Afraid, Our Native Bee Has Adapted to Survive the Winter!

Our lead naturalist Cass Arsenault is back to discuss overwintering bees and to share a beeautiful poem all to reassure us that our busy, buzzing, beneficial friends will bee back with the warmer weather.

French Voyageur Club

On y va, les Voyageurs! (Let’s go, Voyageurs!)

This truly unique program designed and run by staffer Stephanie Potier honors the early French settlers, namely the Voyageurs, who were responsible for the safe transportation of fine furs from the Native Americans. The Johnson Nature Center proved to be a perfect setting to immerse Madame Potier's West Hills French students in the North American fur trade.

Staff Spotlight

Garrett Johnson

The staff at Johnson Nature Center knows a lot more about dinosaurs thanks to having Garrett on our team. His passion for paleontology and geology allowed for the most welcomed revamp of our 4th grade "Changing Earth" program. Thank you Garrett for your endless fun facts and all of your hard-work with our last school program for the year!

School Programs

Nature Preps for Winter

A Quick Look at Our Second Program of the School Year

Our 1st graders experienced an engaging look into how our local flora and fauna prepare for winter. With focus on key words such as "hibernating," "migrating," and "tolerating," we witnessed scampering squirrels and their caches of pinecones and acorns, deer sporting their water-repellent coats, dens and tree cavities, and perhaps the world's greatest puppet show.