Springtime in the forests of Western New York is a time of gentle rebirth and renewal, so welcome and wondrous after the long gray months of winter dormancy, darkness and cold. In the world of plants in our region’s watersheds, vernal awakening is cued most reliably by the shortening of ...
The time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve claims the title of “The Holiday Season.” However, I could make a case for spring as a strong runner up. I sit here both tired and energized from Volunteer Day, Audubon’s Earth Day celebration. After a morning of hard work on the ...
If you’re looking for a good book, here are a few titles I’ve had a chance to review and enjoy recently. Kenn Kaufman has been obsessed with birds since he dropped out of high school and hitchhiked across the country pursuing his passion. He recounted that year in Kingbird Highway (1997). Kaufman’s latest book, “A Season On the Wind: Inside the World of Spring Migration” (2019, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 282 pages, $26) is a timely and authoritative examination of spring bird migration. From his home in northeast Ohio, Kaufman concentrates on spring migration as ...
What is your yard care personality type? Are you a Naturalist? A Perfectionist? A Moderate? No matter your type, there is a way to incorporate watershed-friendly practices into your routine and still maintain a yard that you can be proud of! Why is it important to use ...
There was an odd scraping sound coming from the creek that was twenty feet from where I was standing. The noise was unmistakable, but impossible to describe. It sounded like a cross between chewing and the harsh grate of a rusty metal file. That description made no sense to most people, but ...
There are plenty of reasons to despair these days — mass shootings at public events and schools (from elementary schools to universities), plastics polluting oceans and killing whales and seabirds, communities that lack safe drinking water, and increasingly common catastrophic weather events. The list is long and discouraging. But on Earth Day 2019, let’s address climate change as the greatest existential threat to the planet and civilization today. This is not my opinion. It’s a scientific fact. People can choose to ignore facts, but that does not negate them. The earth is ...
