Working in a garden can force a change in perspective. Kneeling down to get hands in the dirt, plants tower over the gardener. They no longer look down on plants but look through. On one particular day while gardening, I found myself face to face with sturdy stems and broad curved leaves ...
Linda and our grandson, Garek, burst into the apartment a few weeks ago excitedly out of breath. “We’ve got a nest with two white eggs to identify,” she said. “Sounds like a mourning dove,” I replied. “But it was on the ground,” Linda answered. That got my attention. Though mourning doves commonly nest on the ground out west, I had never seen a dove nest on the ground. Linda pulled out her phone and showed me a photo of two white eggs nestled in a scrape on the ground. When I asked where they found it, she said Garek almost stepped on it while running down a ...
The local woodlands, wetlands and streambanks of the Chautauqua watershed beckon us to explore their gifts of natural beauty and biological diversity, and the complex community of creatures living there has much to teach us. One lovely but often over-looked group of organisms, the ferns, ...
It was peaceful out in the middle of the pond. The wind rustled the cattails, creating a rippling rush of sound that whooshed in from the distance and faded off behind me. The occasional loud monkey-like call of a nesting Common Gallinule echoed out of the deep grass. Geese honked in the ...
Cool sea breezes... Breaking waves playing tag with shorebirds on sandy beaches… Laughing gulls braying like hyenas… Sandy feet… These are a few of the images that dominate memories from long ago summer vacations at the Jersey shore. Near constant winds shape the seashore’s physical environment. Even on still days ocean winds that may originate thousands of miles away propel waves that beat rhythmically upon the beach. Where sand dunes are valued and protected, winds sculpt them, and native beach vegetation holds them in place. Coastal breezes can make or break a visit ...
The Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy has been advocating for the establishment of buffers along waterbodies for decades. A “buffer” refers to a vegetated section of land that is set aside along a lake, stream or wetland in order to protect the sensitive habitats that are often found in ...
