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 Lawrence J. Winship For the Gazette March 4, 2022 Yellow lady slipper orchids along Highway 6 on the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario. CONTRIBUTED/Lawrence J. Winship Several summers ago, my […]
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 Tom Litwin
Time can pass slowly while waiting for the light to change at Northampton’s very busy King Street/Bridge Street/Damon Road intersection. Cars and trucks are stopping and going, turning left and right, from all four compass points. An ambulance’s siren puts the whole intersection on alert. A train passing through the Damon Road crossing has me looking at my watch. Sitting at this intersection, I marvel at how our lives, culture, economy and the automobile are so enmeshed.
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.
By Chris Volonte
Moving through New England in a wave each fall is a petite predator that might be one of the most frequently overlooked birds in Massachusetts. Measuring 8 inches long and weighing less than two tennis balls, northern saw-whet owls breed in southern Canada and the northern U.S., and at high elevations such as the Appalachians. They have large gnomelike heads, big eyes, soft feathers and a tendency to sit tamely when a person is near. They’re nocturnal, inconspicuous and — if you’re lucky enough to see one up close — impossibly cute.
Share this page with friends!
Hitchcock Center for the Environment
at Hampshire College
845 West Street | Amherst MA 01002 | 413.256.6006 | 413.253.2809 fax