Good News! | 
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Wild Ones, our parent organization, has finally acquired its best web address: www.wildones.org. The previous address, www.for-wild.org still works, but the new address is much easier to remember. And while you're on the website, why not become an official Wild Ones member (and thus an official HGCNY member). And since WO is a 501(c)3 education and advocacy organization, your membership is tax-deductible.
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Help birds this winter |
 | Volunteers and migration cards |
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Now that we'll be spending more time inside, we can help birds in other ways. Here are two activities:
North American Bird Phenology Program Bird conservation scientists have a problem. The USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center has 6,000,000 (!) bird migration records recorded by citizens from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s BUT it's difficult to find trends with these handwritten cards. The solution? Scan them and transcribe them into digital form!
To do this, though, requires volunteers - people like you and me. Of course, it may not be the most exciting activity, but nevertheless it's interesting to see these cards filled out by dedicated people. And it's hard not to feel a connection with these people as you transcribe their handwritten data faithfully collected so long ago. The website has an excellent video showing you how to transcribe the data. Find out how you can participate.
Project FeederWatch A classic citizen science project! The season just started and it's not too late to join. Not only will you help bird conservation, but you'll be rewarded with a keener sense of observation and a record of your own bird population, which gets more interesting as your data accumulates through the years. Find out how you can participate.
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Now updated and revised
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| Check out this resource, an excellent source of information available free online.
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Greetings!
Sunday November 28 Program: Roundtable Discussion
 | One favorite book, written by Carolyn Summers. Watch for our workshop featuring this author on April 2 at Baltimore Woods! | There's no better way to wrap up our Thanksgiving weekend than to spend some time discussing our habitat gardens - the successes or failures of the past year, our hopes and questions about our gardens next year. Collectively, we have a wealth of knowledge, and there's always something to learn at these annual Thanksgiving roundtable discussions!
Bring a book We also learn a lot by suggesting favorite habitat gardening books. If you found some books helpful or inspiring, chances are others will, too, so please bring one or two of your favorites to the meeting.
We meet at the Le Moyne College Library (directions) Sunday Nov. 28 at 2:00 p.m. Please join us and bring a friend. Our meetings are free and open to the public!
Lakeshore Enhancement Project Capstone meeting At our September meeting, we heard about one fascinating habitat restoration project west of the Fairgrounds. We're also invited to learn about the draft concept plan(s) for additional restoration projects. The plan will be presented at a Thursday December 9th Capstone meeting at the Lakeside Fire Department in Lakeland.The public is invited.
Janet Allen, President Habitat Gardening in Central New York
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 | Monarch emerging from chrysalis last summer
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Our monarchs arrive in Mexico
As the monarchs arrive in Mexico, this reflection by fellow Monarch Watcher Jan LeVesque beautifully expresses the feelings of those of us who raised these butterflies last summer.
Butterfly Release by Jan LeVesque After weeks of intensive care, my little friends have taken to the skies now. One by one, off into the vault of blue autumn skies, peering down at brightly colored trees, cities, meadows, forests, and lakes, the wind on their wings. They are feeling freedom that I could never imagine. For me, sort of like a mother with an empty nest now, I can only hope and ask the universe for their safe passage to their destination. It seems like yesterday that they were just little white dots on some decaying leaves in a Petri dish. I watched them in their mighty struggles with empathy and concern. I labored in their service gladly. In the spirit of poetic license I assign to them human qualities, such as bravery, tenacity, miraculous, mystical, and spectacular. I am especially impressed with the caterpillars and what seems to me like a huge leap of faith and acceptance of fate when they go for that last climb to let the mystery happen. We can learn a lot from them, especially at my age, observing how willingly they submit to their fate, perhaps somehow knowing that it is not really the end but the beginning of a great adventure. Some will say they are but little automatons blindly going through their assigned behaviors but in my heart I think they are much greater than that.
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Featured plant: Eastern White Pine
 | Eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) Photo by Liv Monck-Whipp |
Now that deciduous trees are bare, we especially appreciate evergreens. Wildlife does, too! The Eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) is an especially good source of winter food and cover for dozens of species of birds and many mammals.
As Douglas Tallamy says in Bringing Nature Home, "You may not think pine needles, with all the resins and terpenes, would make a nutritious meal for moth and butterfly larvae, but they are favorites of 203 species in eastern forests. Pines host specialists that can eat nothing else." Of course, those caterpillars and other insect larvae (for example, sawflies) feasting on your pines are a prime supermarket for birds hunting for baby food.
Use in the landscape Not only do Eastern white pines benefit wildlife, but they're also a beautiful resource for landscaping. Carolyn Summers points out in Designing Gardens with Flora of the American East that native conifers such as pines give the creative designer "an attractive green shape and texture for every purpose." Tallamy adds that while pines in the protected forest grow to be huge, tall trees, when grown in the open landscape, they can lose their leaders, creating a spreading, flat form--"the classic look sought after by landscapers in the know."
Known as the "king's pines" William Cullina in Native Trees, Shrubs, and Vines notes that this was the only eastern species that rivaled western trees in width and girth. We have few of these giants left, though, since so many became masts for the British Royal Navy.
How to grow Eastern white pines grow in:
- sun to light shade in
- moist to dry
- acidic conditions
They'll generally reach 60-90 feet, with a width of 25-40 feet.
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Map your backyard with YardMap.org
Most of Cornell's Lab of Ornithology projects study the population and behavior of birds. Their new citizen science project will work to better understand the habitats of birds--not just the wild birds perched on remote mountain tops, but those right in your own back yard.
This obviously is a project tailor-made for HGCNY!
YardMap.org will help researchers better understand the relationship between gardens, rural and urban greenspaces and the birds that live and thrive in these habitats. Sign up on their website if you want to help try out the website before it goes "live" or if you just want to be informed when the project begins. |
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