By Ted Watt
I parked at the top of the dead-end dirt road, strapped on my snowshoes, and started up the old woods road toward the cliffs. I had been here before but not for a month or more. It was late January, a sparkling blue day, temperatures in the mid-20s. The snow was perfect, fresh and light with a good deep base; not like some of our recent winters. I soon reached the hemlock grove with needles and branches littering the snow below, each one nipped off by sharp incisors. There were two deep furrows in the light snow, leading from the nearby jumble of rocky outcrops and cliffs, where the heavy animals had pushed through to get to their favorite winter food. Cliffs and hemlocks — the perfect winter habitat for porcupines
By Michael Dover
“Not in my backyard!” That’s the supposed cry of people who raise objections to proposed projects in their neighborhoods. The expression has been used so often, it has spawned its own acronym: NIMBY. Of course, it has rarely if ever been used by these folks. Rather, it comes up when proponents of these projects want to characterize their opponents’ positions. As is usually the case, labeling opponents is a shorthand way of dismissing their objections without addressing them, and NIMBY is no exception.
By LAWRENCE J. WINSHIP Gazette Contributing Writer Published in print: Saturday, December 7, 2013 Another Thanksgiving is behind us. Many of us were fortunate enough to celebrate with family and […]
By Lawrence J. Winship
Another Thanksgiving is behind us. Many of us were fortunate enough to celebrate with family and friends while feasting on the descendants of Native American foods. To name just a few, turkey, squash, succotash, cranberries, wild rice and potatoes all originated in the Americas. Brought from the wild into human food culture many millennia ago, much of our food comes from plants domesticated by the passage of seed, tuber and rhizome from hand to hand, season after season. We are literally at the receiving end of a long line of gardeners and farmers who sowed, cared for and harvested crops thousands of times — for themselves, of course, but also for us. Ancient farmers reached into the natural world to “borrow” food plants, and their choices and actions shaped our food destiny.
By Ted Watt
Right now we’re safe. Most of them are dead, killed by the heavy frosts of late autumn. And the queen is dormant in a carefully constructed chamber under a log or rock in the forest. But next April she’ll emerge and begin a new nest. She was fertilized in the fall, so she’ll lay eggs and raise the first workers of her colony, then turn over all the jobs in the colony to them except for egg laying. You’ve probably seen them — white-faced hornets.
By Elizabeth Farnsworth
I am fascinated by celestial objects and “once-in-a-lifetime” events in space. Why? Perhaps because they make me pause to reflect on a happening that is so much bigger than me and that I’ll only have the chance to witness and appreciate once. I was, for example, transfixed by the transit of Venus across our sun on the evening of June 5, 2012. Thick, stubborn clouds parted just in time to reveal the planet traverse the sun, a tiny silhouette passing across the fiery solar surface. Every morning, my first “stop” while perusing the Web over coffee before tackling email is the “Astronomy Picture of the Day,” hosted by NASA (apod.nasa.gov), where I can view extraordinary photos and text about supernovas, visit galaxies far far away and boldly go where no one has gone before. (Yes, I watched too much “Star Trek” as a kid.) This fall, a new and exciting astronomical object will enter our realm: Comet ISON (for International Scientific Optical Network, one of whose telescopes is credited with its discovery).
By Henry Lappen
A few winters ago, a drama unfolded outside my door that highlighted the conflict that can happen when migratory species and year-round residents (“settled” species) compete for the same resource. A Northern mockingbird, a settled species, was confronted with a flock of migratory Bohemian waxwings, which occasionally visit our area from the north.
By Katie Koerten
“Maybe we should just go home, and try to find it another time,” I suggested to my partner Matt. It was an April evening, and daylight had all but disappeared. We had been wandering around a meadow in Amherst for over an hour, hoping for a sign of an American woodcock. Neither of us had ever witnessed this fascinating bird or its famous mating flight display. We had been tipped off that it could be found in this particular meadow after sunset. But after what felt like ages, there had been no sign of it. We were just about ready to call it quits when Matt suggested, “What if I played the sound of it on my Droid? Do you think that would attract it?”
By David Spector
For people who collect things, rarity brings value — rare coins, art, bird sightings. While rare bird sightings are not kept in vaults and sold for millions of dollars, they are very much sought after and enjoyed by birdwatchers. It may seem paradoxical, but rare bird sightings, wherever they occur, are actually fairly common and mostly involve common birds. While no one can be certain exactly when or where the events will occur or which species will be involved, it is almost certain that in any given year there will be multiple instances of such sightings. Most of these birds are not rare in a global sense; a bird that is common in California, Europe, Asia or Florida might be extremely rare here. With roughly twice as many birds in the world now as there were in the early spring due to the breeding season, and with many of those birds young and inexperienced, the fall migration is especially rich in errant birds.
By Elizabeth Farnsworth
Northampton is a walkable city, with shops, theater and a plethora of wonderful restaurants. What’s a bit less obvious to those who stroll Main Street is that an equally wonderful river runs through the town. The Mill River courses through 18 miles from its headwaters in Goshen to its confluence with the mighty Connecticut River via Hurlburt’s Pond, west of the Oxbow. Many walking trails traverse the riverbanks at Mass Audubon’s Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary in Easthampton, and in neighborhoods west of Smith College.
Hitchcock Center for the Environment
at Hampshire College
845 West Street | Amherst MA 01002 | 413.256.6006 | 413.253.2809 fax