By David Spector
At this time of year I count on one of my favorite spring wildflowers, the little bluet (Houstonia caerulea), for a lovely show. Depending on exact location, altitude and microclimate, anytime from early April (even late March after mild winters) to early May, I see lawns covered with a late “snow” of these flowers. A highlight of my commute is a lawn a few miles from my house that has ideal conditions for this species and is often covered with bloom before the flowers appear elsewhere.
By Michael Dover
Like others concerned about climate change, I was disheartened by last November’s election. We now have a president who has called climate change a hoax, and his appointees to lead the Departments of Energy and Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency all have strong ties to the fossil fuel industry. The new administration appears to be moving toward more widespread fossil fuel extraction and use. The very act of collecting and reporting information on climate change may be at risk.
By Lawrence J. Winship
In my youth, tromping through the deciduous woodlands of Ohio and Pennsylvania with family and friends, we occasionally came upon strange-looking trees. Their shapes were so contorted that we found it hard to imagine how they could have gotten that way.
By David Spector
People unfamiliar with birds are often amazed at a birdwatcher’s ability to identify individual sounds from the natural chorus of birds, frogs, grasshoppers and others.
It’s not an inborn talent, though: Anyone who can hear can learn identification by ear, and in this column I offer some tips for learning bird sounds. Each person learns differently, so, as with any advice, use what works and ignore the rest.
By Reeve Gutsell
In recent years, many New Englanders have noticed an abundance of ladybugs congregating near the walls and windows of their homes during the end of autumn and re-emerging during spring. These non-native harlequin ladybugs (Harmonia axyridis: actually a beetle, not a “bug”) are an invasive species that were introduced to North America in 1916 to control scale insects and aphids, both of which are major crop pests. Although they did successfully control aphids, harlequin ladybug populations didn’t establish in the wild until 1988, when one wild population was noticed near New Orleans. Since then, they have spread throughout much of North America, as well as into Europe, South Africa and South America.
By David Spector
By mid-winter many of the smaller, more colorful birds have gone south for the season, and now is a good time to pay attention to gulls. With their black, white and gray plumage, these engaging birds are a match to the winter landscape. As ecological generalists, gleaning gulls can make a living on our leavings as they pick over the corn left in farm fields, fries in fast-food parking lots and discarded bits of food in and around rivers.
By Reeve Gutsell
As readers of this column may be aware, a recent article in the Gazette highlighted Project Stream and the wetland restoration work at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley. This project is a wonderful example of restoration ecology — the recovery of ecosystems that have been degraded, damaged or destroyed. In recent years, significant amounts of time, money and effort have been invested in projects like these around the country.
By Ted Watt
Recently I’ve been thinking about plants that stay green during the freezing temperatures of our winters. What function does that green serve in the plants’ annual cycle?
As a naturalist I have become accustomed to thinking that there is a reason for every structure and behavior we observe in the natural world. And if what we observe seems nonsensical to us, it just means that we need to observe more carefully, and gather further information about the creature or habitat we are learning about, in order to make sense of what we are seeing.
By David Spector
Confronted with the task of traveling up and down a tree or ladder, most humans approach both the ascent and the descent with legs down and head up. Most birds with a scansorial (climbing) lifestyle similarly move along the trunk of a tree with their tail down and head up.
By Michael Dover
Amazed as I am to say it, this is the 200th Earth Matters column. Something about having 10 fingers and 10 toes seems to make us like numbers ending in zero — the more the merrier. And somehow, reaching 200 feels more significant than the fact that in March we’ll be celebrating eight years of publishing this column every two weeks, under the aegis of the Hitchcock Center for the Environment. Both of these are especially remarkable to me, as I’ve been coordinating and co-editing it since we began in 2009.
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Hitchcock Center for the Environment
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