Come for the calm, stay for the thrills at Fenner Nature Center

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking past the monarch butterfly house at Lansing’s Fenner Nature Center when a breathless 4-year-old girl hailed me from afar, leaving the rest of her family behind.

“We saw a tookey!” she shouted. Thanksgiving was a week away. Turkeys were on everyone’s mind.

People go to Fenner to relax, walk the paths and breathe in some nature, but they often end up getting an unexpected thrill. I didn’t see the turkey, but a few minutes later, a bald eagle tore a spectacular loop over the trail directly ahead, carrying a squirming squirrel in its talons.

As if that weren’t enough excitement, a pissed-off hawk, barely half the size of the eagle, followed in righteous pursuit.

Fenner, this year’s Top of the Town winner for Best Nature Center, is a hallowed haven with a long history of connecting people to nature, and it has lot of new programs, events and facilities coming up in the next year.

Visitors delight in quiet paths lined by ancient trees, ponds teeming with turtles and forestland full of orioles, warblers, bluebirds and the deer that browse the meadows and woods.

“Some people only have time to stop by on their lunch break and hang out in the parking lot for a few minutes,” Fenner Conservancy director Gabe Biber said. “Other people are heading off trails, deep into the woods. There are so many different ways people come here and interact with nature.”

Some kids come just to say “hello” to Bowser, a 30-pound snapping turtle named after the chelonian nemesis of gaming icon Mario and one of several popular Animal Ambassadors housed in or near the visitor’s center.

Many local residents know Fenner from its two major annual events, the Maple Syrup Festival in March and Apple Butter Festival in October. Both festivals are community treasures with a 50-year history.

Next year, the park plans to add a third major event, World Birding Day at Fenner, in conjunction with International Migratory Bird Day on May 9.

“Fenner is a unique spot to see a lot of special birds,” Biber said. “Folks come here from all over the world to add birds to their lists.” The event will also bring Fenner back to its roots as a nature center under Joan Brigham, the park’s chief naturalist from 1970 to 1982.

“This place was an arboretum, with roads going through it where visitors could drive all over the property,” Biber said. “She was the inspirational force that helped turn the corner for this to be more of a naturalized place, for people to get out of their vehicles and explore.”

Winter only diversifies the opportunities for tracking nature’s never-ending cycle. Naturalists will lead an “Owl Prowl,” a sunset search for the three owl species that inhabit the park, at 5 p.m. Jan. 10.

The nonprofit Fenner Conservancy leases the nature center, along with 60 acres in nearby Sycamore Creek Park (formerly a driving range), from the city for a nominal fee.

Grants, private donations and a vigorous volunteer force help keep the park in pristine condition.

Fenner’s educational programs stretch from preschool to elementary and from secondary school to university-based research for Lansing Community College and Michigan State University students, and their reach continues to grow. In 2022, the former driving range’s pro shop at Sycamore Creek Park was converted into Fenner Nature Preschool, with the help of a $47,000 grant from the Dart Foundation. The preschool brings nature-based learning to kids from 3 to 5.

Next year, Fenner plans to pilot what Biber called “the first all-outdoor preschool in the state of Michigan,” to be hosted at the Fenner visitors center.

“The demand for preschool is a huge issue, here and across the nation,” Biber said. “That is a critical area where we need to keep on expanding services.”

If you’re an even smaller person, Fenner will soon have you covered. The Fenner Nature Playscape at Sycamore Creek Park is scheduled to open in spring 2026 in the old driving range area. There will be tunnels, pits, boulders, logs and running water that encourage open-ended “risky play” (but not really risky) for kids under 5 years old. The conservancy is taking input on the project at its website,
mynaturecenter.org.

Many of the young people who come to Fenner as part of an educational program are having their first experience of the natural world. Fenner education director Samuel Ansaldi said kids come to the center year-round, and not just via single-day field trips. Elementary school kids spend an entire week at Fenner in an immersive program developed in tandem with the national nonprofit group Annie’s Big Nature Lesson.

“Bringing a class out here for a field trip is wonderful, but bringing them for an entire week is spectacular,” Ansaldi said.

Hundreds of Lansing-area kids experience Fenner each year at summer camps. A new “adventure-style camp” aimed at middle schoolers will be launched in 2026.

Every other Saturday, corps of volunteers can be seen managing invasive species and doing other crucial jobs at Fenner.

“Without our volunteer force, we couldn’t accomplish the tasks we need to accomplish,” said volunteer and stewardship coordinator Dylan Lallemand. “But also, having people from the Lansing community contribute and be a part of Fenner, and have that ownership, is something I absolutely love when I’m working with our volunteers.”

Maintaining the integrity of the park’s native flora is a never-ending, ever-evolving job. Volunteers clear out invasive herbaceous plants like garlic mustard, dame’s rocket and motherwort, along with “woodies” (woody shrubs) like amur honeysuckle and buckthorn.

Most recently, the park has been invaded by the deceptively named, highly invasive tree of heaven. Lallemand and the volunteers are hustling to root out the trees before their dreaded insect companion, the destructive spotted lanternfly, appears on the scene. Volunteers also clear brush, pick up litter, groom the trails, help monitor bluebird boxes and perform multiple jobs at big events like the Apple Butter Festival, Maple Syrup Festival and the upcoming World Birding Day in May.

“We have outdoor and indoor opportunities,” Lallemand said. About 800 volunteers pitched in at Fenner in 2024, from organized groups of students to curious kids and their parents. “Every kid can pull an herbaceous plant,” Lallemand said. “They love doing it.”