By Lawrence J. Winship
As we move deeper into winter, once again it becomes evident that living at 42 degrees north latitude has one certain consequence: We trade the bright long days of summer for the short, dark days of winter. Lower sun angles, later dawns and earlier sunsets are all caused by the tilt of our planet’s axis away from the sun. We spin at an angle of 23.5 degrees relative to our orbital plane around old Sol. Facing towards the light and then away in a perpetual annual cycle, we don’t turn our backs completely on the sun, as they do above the Arctic Circle — but it does get pretty dim! Season in and season out, Earth continuously radiates heat energy back to the cosmos, so the reduced solar input in winter throws our soils, forests and lakes into negative heat energy balance and they freeze — water like a stone.
By Reeve Gutsell
Farming is hard. Ask any local farmer, and they’ll tell you the same thing: From wrangling with the vagaries of weather to struggling with pests and diseases, farming is hard on the body, the mind and the finances. Unfortunately, climate change is making life even more challenging.
By TOM LITWIN For the Gazette December 14, 2018 Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series. Part 1 was published on December 1. Three […]
By TOM LITWIN For the Gazette December 3, 2018 Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series. Part 2 will be published on December 15. Ten years ago, […]
By Christine Hatch
I’m offended. I hereby register my formal and public complaint regarding using “drain the swamp,” to refer to removing excess, unusable or undesirable from politics in general and Washington D.C. in particular. While the latter may be a worthy activity — now more than ever, for the good of the swamp and clean air and water for every other living creature — in our physical, natural world, please don’t drain that swamp! Your life might depend on it! Here’s why.
By Kari Blood For the Gazette Friday, November 02, 2018 When I was a child growing up in upstate New York, there was magic all around me. I found that […]
By Katie Koerten
I’m about as cynical about social media as anyone. I spend too many hours of my life on the Internet and I feel icky about it. Any benefits I get — seeing what faraway friends are up to, learning about events I might be interested in, reading interesting and important articles — are usually offset by the disappointment at the wasted time. Yet every now and then, social media can be a source of joy, and sometimes even does what it set out to do: connect people.
By Joshua Stewart Rose
Seven years ago, I attended the annual meeting of the Dragonfly Society of the Americas — a mixed group of researchers, naturalists, and other dragonfly enthusiasts — in Delaware. There we heard that tiger spiketails (Cordulegaster erronea) were breeding in the northwestern corner of that state. Spiketails are large, distinctive dragonflies, black with bright yellow stripes and green eyes. Their namesake spike is an ovipositor, which the female jabs into stream beds in a sewing-machine-like motion to lay eggs. Many of us detoured on our way home to see them. This was the only time I had ever seen the species, which had never been recorded in Massachusetts — yet.
By John Sinton For the Gazette
I spent an absorbing three hours in some woods, fields and wetlands at Hospital Hill (now called Village Hill) in Northampton earlier this year. Take it from an old codger — if you’re ever offered the chance to accompany three skilled professional naturalists on a species hunt, jump at it! You’ll see whole worlds in clumps of weeds and grand surprises along the trails.
By Patrick O’Roark
You may have noticed some large, charismatic insect friends hanging out in tall grasses or low bushes lately, or perhaps absorbing the warmth of the sun on the side of a building.
Late summer and early fall is prime time for seeing praying mantises. The adults have finished mating and the females are out and about laying their egg cases, known as oothecae. As winter approaches, the adults will die and their oothecae will be left behind to overwinter, awaiting the warmth and moisture that comes with spring. At that point the conditions will be right and eggs will hatch. Somewhere around 100 to 200 nymphs will emerge from the ootheca, and this next generation will disperse amongst the grasses and shrubs that will be their home for the next several months.
Hitchcock Center for the Environment
at Hampshire College
845 West Street | Amherst MA 01002 | 413.256.6006 | 413.253.2809 fax