 |
Elise Tillinghast
This winter, a barred owl has been loitering around my house. My husband arbitrarily declared it a male (there's no easy way to sex an owl) and we dubbed him Squinty McBold. "Bold" because he seems indifferent to our comings and goings across the lawn, "Squinty" because of his appearance in the early a.m...
|
Central Massachusetts - Witnessed by a game camera, a bobcat descends a beaver dam. Credit: Janet Pesaturo.
The next gallery will be published in early March. Submit your February 2015 photos on the gallery page.
|
Tim Traver
The measure of a successful hunt depends on whom you ask; hunters are often biased by individual success or failure, whereas biologists take a detached, big-picture view. But this much is true: one of the world's oldest occupations is managed today by one of its newest - information technology...
|
Celia Evans
For the past 14 years, my Winter Ecology students and I have spent a lot of time outdoors, studying the preferred habitat features and winter foods of snowshoe hares. We're likely to find hare tracks hopping in and around lowland conifers near wetland edges, and then again at higher elevations...
|
 
There's foreign matter on this tree trunk. What is it?
Every other week we run a photo of something unusual found in the woods. Guess what it is and you'll be eligible to win one of our Season's Main Events Day Calendars. A prize winner will be drawn at random from all the correct entries. The correct answer, and the winner's name, will appear in our next e-newsletter.
This week's contest deadline is 8:00 AM, Wednesday, February 18, 2015.
|
Congratulations to our winner Sally Mullen of East Granby, CT! Sally receives a Season's Main Events Day Calendar.
Richard Carbonetti sent us a series of these photos from the Northeast Kingdom. It isn't a hiking trail; what is it?
NW Answer:
A beaver trail (or, more accurately, highway).
|
Our cup runneth over. Actually, our inbox spilleth over. Either way, we have a lot of interesting news stories that cross our desks. Here were some of our favorites:
NATURE
Rare gobblin sharks have defied evolution for 70 million years, but one just got caught in a fishing net. And cats, it turns out, have nothing on squirrels. How do trees survive winter? And if you need some help getting through the long winter yourself, ten hours of relaxing forest and nature sounds and these photos of amazing trees may help. Tropical forests are getting help from above, while a 10,000-year-old underwater forest has been discovered.
INDUSTRY
The maple industry is giving new meaning to "tap water." Meanwhile, the USDA has released updated maple syrup grading standards. In other news from Washington, the EPA has issued new rules and regulations for residential wood heating and the U.S. Forest Service is looking to hire 1,000 new employees.
Closer to home, Vermont has released voluntary timber harvesting guidelines for landowners, hemlocks are on the decline in the Catskills, a Maine college has opted for biomass heat over natural gas, and renewable energy rebates are in jeopardy in New Hampshire. And one story that proves we live in an ever-shrinking world: the Russian economy is affecting trappers here in New England.
STORIES YOU'VE SHARED
We received news of a couple of courses being offered this winter through Hogback Community College (HCC) in Bristol, Vermont. HCC is a relatively new venue for high quality but low cost, non-graded, and non-credit courses. The classes include "Four-Season Birding in the Hogback Ecoregion" (begins Feb. 21) and "Tree Identification in the Hogback Ecoregion" (begins Feb. 28). Learn more here.
On March 20, the Maine Environmental Education Association will be holding an intensive day of case studies, resources, skill building, and collaborative action planning. Topics will include the new nature movement, climate change education, healthy communities, new visions for K-12 education, and more. Online registration will open soon.
A Winter-Water-Woods-themed exhibit by 26 Vermont artists will celebrate NorthWood Stewardship Center's 26th year of natural resource stewardship. On February 22, there will be a free opening reception at the Center in East Charleston, Vermont, from 4-6 p.m. The exhibit runs for two weeks.
|
|
|
|
|
|
