Last month, my column entitled “Warming Worries” addressed climate change and its disruptive threats to the seasonal symphonies now playing out in the wetlands, woodlands, fields, and forests of our Chautauqua watershed and elsewhere. And yes, there is cause for worry. Warming ...
I’ve always been intrigued by the creatures that live underwater. Their adaptations that allow them to live, breathe, and flourish under immense pressure underwater is fascinating. When I relax by the television, an episode (or six) of “River Monsters” on Animal Planet is usually ...
Gaze across any late winter landscape as February winds down, and you’ll soon notice small patches of fresh greenery. Longer days, warmer temperatures, and frequent rainfall promote lush plant growth. Because plants — grass, wildflowers, shrubs, and trees — are such ubiquitous parts of our lives, it is easy to take them for granted. Worse, we curse them for the work they foist upon us during the growing season. But it won’t be too long before summer heat and drought slow plant growth, and we’ll long for the lush days of spring. The sheer biomass (plant material) that ...
We all use wood products — every single one of us in one way or another. Those products must come from somewhere. Fortunately, they literally do “grown on trees.” It may seem antithetical coming from CWC, but we DO support appropriately conducted timber harvests. The issue is not with ...
I once took a workshop that evaluated children’s knowledge of nature based on how they drew trees. As their experience outside grew, their trees went from looking like green lollipops to developing rougher edges, some branches and then some animals in them. The drawings became more and ...
Every year as the sun rises earlier and sets later, I get antsy. I’m ready for winter to end and spring to begin. So I keep my eyes on the juncos at the feeders. They arrive each fall in late October or early November and stay the winter. Their return north in April is a sure sign that winter’s really over. Juncos, or snowbirds as they’re often called, define the end of winter and the onset of spring for observant nature watchers. Dark-eyed juncos breed in northern forests all the way to the tundra. They find temperate winters down right balmy. Permanent populations ...
