By Joshua Rose
’Tis the season of mistletoe, sort of. Mistletoe is evergreen, meaning it’s present year-round. However, winter is the season when we think about mistletoe most often. In the southeastern U.S., where I am writing this piece, mistletoe is hidden among the leaves for three seasons. Right now, though, with other leaves long since fallen, the clumps of still-green mistletoe stand out. This seasonal increase in visibility may have helped mistletoe become one of the iconic symbols of Christmas, dating back to at least the 1700s.
By Monya Relles
Have you heard about gay penguins? You may remember Ray and Silo, the gay penguins of the Central Park Zoo of 2004, proud parents of their own adopted chick. Since then, there have been dozens of gay penguins in zoos, in news articles, and even on TV’s “Parks and Recreation.” Gay penguins often spark the question of whether or not homosexuality is “natural” in the animal world. Yes: From gay penguins, to lesbian lizards, to fish who can change their sex in response to their environment, queerness is an integral part of the animal world and nature doesn’t care for the human-constructed boxes of male, female, straight or gay.
By Lawrence J. Winship
For about three quarters of the year, the leaves on our area’s trees and shrubs are at work, absorbing sunlight, opening and closing pores to limit water loss and to take up carbon dioxide. Each species has its distinct leaf shape, size, even color — there really is no one uniquely ideal leaf shape, spatial arrangement or composition. Leaves are diverse in form and function, permitting adaptation to variation in climate, soils and weather. What may be less apparent, though, is the diversity of leaves’ life histories…
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.
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.
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Hitchcock Center for the Environment
at Hampshire College
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