By Tom Litwin
There’s a vast show of nature that occurs twice a year. If you’re not looking for it, it’s easy to miss. In the spring millions of Neotropical migrant birds, including warblers, thrushes, flycatchers and vireos, flood into New England from Central and South America, and from the Caribbean. In fall they return to their wintering grounds. It’s amazing and seemingly improbable that a warbler weighing one-third of an ounce — the weight of four pennies, composed of bone, feathers and flesh, and feeding on insects, berries and seeds — can routinely accomplish this feat. With a push of their spindly legs, and a flap of their wings, they overcome gravity, flying most of their journeys at night, navigating by stars and the earth’s magnetic fields. This lifestyle is extremely hazardous; weather, natural predators and domestic cats, collisions with buildings, and loss of habitat all take their toll.
By Bridget Likely and Kari Blood
Autumn in the Valley has been a stunning parade of color this year. That’s a dramatic shift from just a few months ago, when dull brown seemed like the dominant hue. A lack of rain that began in June baked lawns into crunchy straw, withered crops in local farm fields, and transformed normally free-flowing streams into mud puddles where small fish struggled to survive. A changing global climate made the summer of 2022 one of the hottest and driest on record in Massachusetts. The state declared a “Level 3-Critical” drought in the Connecticut River Valley in early August. Drought not only ruins landscaping, reduces crop yields and stresses wildlife, but it also threatens a fundamental resource that we often take for granted: our drinking water.
By Katie Koerten
Arachnophobia is defined by Merriam-Webster as “pathological fear or loathing of arachnids and especially spiders.” But in my experience, this fear doesn’t make you pathological, it just makes you normal. Among many of my friends and family, it is acceptable, even expected, to post photos on social media of spiders found in their homes with captions such as “Time to move out!” or “Should I burn the house down?” or a simple “Gross!” At least in my world, hating spiders puts you in the majority.
By Christine Hatch
Sometimes changing your vantage point makes all the difference. It certainly did for me when my students and I were out searching for baby Atlantic white cedars (Chamaecyparis thyoides). Why we were seeking cedars is a longer story. Before cranberry farming was commercialized in the 1850s all along the Atlantic seaboard, one significant inhabitant of low, marshy peat bogs was the Atlantic white cedar. As some of these cranberry farms are being restored back into freshwater wetlands, researchers have discovered large Atlantic white cedar stumps perfectly preserved in the anoxic, saturated peat beneath them.
By Allie Martineau
Talking to kids about the climate crisis can feel overwhelming. Where do I start? What if I make them worry? Picture books take major events and otherwise scary topics and pack them into 32 pages or so of art, context and connections we share together. Picture books — along with novels and comics — are incredible tools for generating empathy and can help in climate conversations by keeping us focused on facts, empowerment and action.
By Meghadeepa Maity
This is a story about how one organization’s exemplary commitment to inclusivity helped me realize a dream. I’m a queer, disabled, South Asian immigrant, an avid birder and an activist in the North American birding community. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to see an Atlantic puffin. It’s often easier for organizations to publish a statement rejecting marginalization in the wake of racial reckonings, than it is to take concrete steps to welcome those of us who have historically been excluded from outdoor recreation and conservation. But the National Audubon Society followed through, and I was a beneficiary.
I first proposed camperships for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and other People of Color) youth as an action item on a local inclusion committee two years ago. This summer, I was incidentally awarded a fully funded Audubon BIPOC scholarship that led to a transformational experience at the weeklong “Puffin Islands” camp at Hog Island, Maine…
By Joshua Rose
Fungi — bane or blessing? Nuisance or nourishing? Delicious or deadly? Answer: Yes, and more. On the plus side, as I explain below, many of Earth’s plant and animal species depend on fungi. On the minus side, fungi have been implicated in widespread declines, disappearances and even extinctions of a number of animal and plant species. And eating them could be either a big plus or huge minus.
By Michael Dover
The failure of some food systems has been cited for the decline and fall of some major civilizations. Today, we face a different kind of challenge to our food systems: the globalization of our food supply (and its breakdowns) and the effects of industrial-scale farming on a vast scale across the globe. “Pastoral Song: A Farmer’s Journey,” by James Rebanks is a personal story about the changes on an English hill farm over the last half-century. It’s a microcosm of what has happened in agriculture since the end of World War II.
Hitchcock Center for the Environment
at Hampshire College
845 West Street | Amherst MA 01002 | 413.256.6006 | 413.253.2809 fax