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 Kari Blood
Agriculture is at the heart of our region’s health and food security. Yet New England is losing about 1,500 acres of farmland every year. With more farmers aging out of the business, and many of their children choosing other occupations, it’s vital to keep our local land in farming. Conserving those lands as farms is one important tool for that, as nonprofit land trusts, alongside public agencies, work with farmland owners who choose to protect their land.
By Katie Koerten
Last November I wrote an article for this column about the color blue in nature: how rare it is, and how difficult it is for nature to even produce it. To my delight, it garnered a lot of interest and curiosity, and even a letter to the editor with a story about why robins’ eggs are blue. I thought this a dazzling — and timely! — example of blue in nature to write about in springtime.
By Joshua Rose For the Gazette April 15, 2022 If you’re a naturalist, your friends, neighbors and relatives often send you photos asking, “What is this?” If you recognize it, […]
By John Sinton for the Gazette For the Gazette Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part essay about American eels; the first was published on Saturday, March 19. […]
By John Sinton for the Gazette For the Gazette Editor’s note: This is the first of two parts exploring the migration of American eels. Part 2 will run Saturday, April […]
By David Spector For the Gazette February 4, 2022 Listen at dawn. From southernmost Canada through much of the eastern United States (and parts of northern Central America) you might […]
By Billy Spitzer For the Gazette February 4, 2022 A few years ago, I watched a fascinating series of interviews with Apollo astronauts as they talked about first seeing the […]
By Monya Relles For the Gazette January 21, 2022 At a meeting of the Western Massachusetts Youth Climate Summit team last summer, Clover Hogan, executive director of the group Force […]
By Christine Hatch
In early December of 2009, my colleagues and I had spent the day in a high tiny headwater stream in Great Basin National Park listening to elk bugling all around us while we did our work. That evening, at dinner in Baker, Nevada, we heard the hunters at the bar complaining, “I didn’t see a single elk all day long!” Elk season opened that day, and all the animals were inside the safe boundaries of the national park. Nature knows things. Learning to listen to nature’s unexpected wisdom has fueled my passion for science.
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