by Ted Watt
It was January, with two feet of cold crisp powder on the ground. The day was bright and sunny. The 5th and 6th grades at our small rural, hill-town school had been studying life sciences. Educators and students were focusing on animals and the many varied ways they are adapted, both physically and behaviorally, to living in their environment. We decided to take advantage of the perfect winter day and headed out to see what we could learn about how animals live in winter from the signs and tracks they left behind.
By Scott Merzbach
Life-threatening dangers are posed any time a migratory bird approaches a building, unaware that it could be on course to strike a window. “They just see a reflection of vegetation or of the sky,” says Randy Dettmers, migratory bird biologist at U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Hadley, who estimates that 20 to 30 birds annually can be fatally injured at any one- or two-story building.
by Tom Litwin
During migration season this past fall researchers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, using NEXRAD weather radar, tracked approximately 4 billion birds migrating from Canada into the U.S. and 4.7 million birds leaving the U.S. for the tropics. Clearly one strategy for dealing with New England weather is to leave it behind. But other species’ strategies have traded the benefits and perils posed by thousands of miles of travel for the benefits and perils of northern winters.
by Joshua Rose
Once upon a time, it was called Bri-Mar Stables and described as “a quaint equestrian facility nestled in the heart of Hadley … providing a welcoming environment for those passionate about all things equine.” The property had a barn at the top of a hill on Moody Bridge Road and a track for riding out back near the Fort River. The farm eventually closed and was sold to a developer. The developer was allegedly caught illegally filling wetlands and offered a choice: Pay fines that would erode their profit margins or sell the land to the government. They chose the latter.
Birdwatchers make lists. We list bird species seen by day, week, year, or lifetime. We list birds seen in a yard, town, state, or continent. We compete and get a special thrill from finding a stray from far away.
By Meghadeepa Maity
In a past column, I wrote of “a Bengali poem that I‘ve loved forever” which references several species of wildlife and plants, and “stands out for the unsaid depth of emotion — it speaks of nostalgia, grief and homesickness.” আবার আসি ব ফি রে (“Abar Ashibo Phirey”) was written in 1934 by Jibanananda Das (he/him) and published posthumously in 1957. I’d recited the poem at a bird walk once, and after requests from several attendees, I determined that a translation was necessary.
By Joshua Rose
Maybe you looked into a bird’s nest and saw one egg that was a different size and color than the rest. Or you noticed a chick that was larger, louder, and more aggressive than the others. Maybe you saw a parent bird feeding a chick larger than itself, and different in color and shape. What you saw was a brood parasite, an animal that fools animals of other species into caring for its offspring, usually at the expense of the host species’ own young.
By Lee Halasz and Kari Blood
This winter has been one of the warmest on record in Massachusetts, and around the nation, extreme weather events are in the headlines on a regular basis. Scientists agree that our rapidly warming planet is now feeling the effects of the climate crisis. However, climate change is not the only crisis our planet faces. For decades, scientists and conservation groups have also been raising the alarm about the “biodiversity crisis,” in which wildlife populations are plummeting. Fortunately, one solution to addressing these challenges may lie in a surprising place: the farmlands that help define the landscape of the Connecticut River Valley.
By David Spector
For many years my research brought me outside in May and June about an hour before sunrise to hear and record yellow warblers. Males in breeding season sang intensively for a half-hour or so, and, depending on their mating status, sang in a somewhat different style and less intensively well into the morning. Females often responded to male song with “chip” notes, and both sexes used a variety of short calls. Each vocalizing bird revealed its location, and often much more information — its species, its sex, its individual identity, its mating status, its willingness to fight if approached by another of the same species and sex, and perhaps more about its behavioral state. Such information is valuable, possibly affecting the bird’s survival. Why share it? How might sharing this information benefit the individual animal? I suggest three answers to these questions: leakage, manipulation and probing.
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.
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