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Summer Is Finally Here

Did you hear the story about the conversation between two friends? The one said to the other, “I love summer in Chautauqua County!” “Really?” said the other. “Yep,” the first one replied. “It was on a Sunday last year!” All kidding aside, I thought this joke was going to ring true this year. With a frost in June, torrential rains, tornadoes and temps in the 40s at night, what else would a person think? But finally, by the end of June, it seemed we are getting some beautiful summer weather. With at least two great weekends now under our belts, I am ready for ...

Natural World

I’ve always said that my favorite thing about being a naturalist and an environmental biologist is the fact that there is always more to learn about nature. In my experience every time I answer a question or discover something new about the natural world I am left with even more unanswered ...

Introduce Children To The Cool Side

Relief from the dog days of summer is as close as the nearest spring-fed stream. With just a facemask, a snorkel, and an old pair of sneakers, you can observe aquatic life on its own terms — underwater. Snorkeling is a great way to introduce children to the cool side of nature. First, just a few words of warning. Wherever you snorkel, make safety your top concern. Never snorkel alone. Stay in shallow water. And never explore under large rocks or submerged logs. Before getting wet, walk a length of stream, and notice it consists of two parts: slow moving pools and rapidly flowing ...

Are You Fertilizing The Lake?

Is lawn fertilization contributing to Chautauqua Lake’s algae blooms? Chautauqua Lake has experienced seasonal algae blooms for decades. It has always been a relatively fertile lake, with abundant plants and algae contributing to very productive panfish, muskellunge and smallmouth and ...

A Blank Book

As a child, summer vacation meant no classrooms and often, no walls. The world was like a blank book, open to a page where you could write that day’s adventure as you lived it. I remember bike rides down to the creek, bike convoys down to the tennis courts, or magical lands created around ...

Hercules Beetles Common In Forest

Kids love dinosaurs. I did more than 55 years ago, and so did many of my friends. We collected and played with hard plastic toy models with long, hard-to-pronounce and spell names imprinted on them. Names like tyrannosaurus, stegosaurus, and plesiosaurus. The size, ferocity, and fear of real dinosaurs appealed to us. And for me, those feelings persisted into adulthood. When “Jurassic Park” opened in 1993, I was giddy with excitement as I bought my ticket on opening day. The scenes of herds of dinosaurs stampeding across vast fields were just as I’d imagined. Of course, ...