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Popular Discussions
- Clearing the Air: Outdoor Wood Boilers Face Regulation (35)
- Lumber, Chips, and Sawdust: For Sawmills, There’s No Such Thing as Waste (13)
- Autumn Olive (12)
- Tale of the Tick: How Lyme Disease is Expanding Northward (11)
- Indian Pipe (9)
- The Haitian Landscape (8)
- Wood Worse than Coal? (7)
- Forests Can’t Fight Climate Change (7)
- Wood Pellets (7)
- It’s Time to Reconsider Spring and Summer Bird Feeding (5)
- Beware of Encroaching Forests (5)
- First Snow (5)
- Bears Fattening Up for Winter’s Slumber (5)
- Opening Camp (5)
- Wet Weather Wondering (5)
Ginny’s Calendar Archive
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August 2010
The eggs of eastern tent caterpillars that are now being laid in a glob on cherry twigs will survive the winter in an antifreeze solution of glycerol / Muskrats eat freshwater clams, fish, and crustaceans, as well as cattail stalks and roots / Second batch of flying squirrels is born / Eastern newts can co-exist with fish in permanent ponds,… (more)
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July 2010
On July 6 the Sun will be 94.5 million miles from Earth, as far away as it will be at any other time in 2010 / One of the planet’s most successful creations, the mosquito, has been here for 50 million years. A female mosquito can suck up two and a half times her empty body weight in blood /… (more)
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June 2010
Luna moths, the largest of the giant silk moths, are searching for mates / The gray fox will climb trees and jump from branch to branch like a cat. Look for a ridge of black guard hair on the tail, which also has a black tip / Broadwing hawk chicks are hatching; often their nest is high in a tree… (more)
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May 2010
Alder flea beetles, ¼-inch long and metallic blue-green, are evident on swelling alder buds and will soon begin laying eggs / Male whitetails are quickly regaining the fat they lost over the winter and during last autumn’s rut / Warbler arrivals may include ovenbird, magnolia, parula, Blackburnian, and northern water thrush / Several invasive species leaf out early. The pale… (more)
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April 2010
There may still be some snow on the ground when mourning cloak butterflies begin flying. If it is cold, they will bask on dark surfaces to warm their flight muscles / Spring peepers begin peeping in earnest. Isolated peepers will peep from now until November, but only now is there a deafening chorus / Turkey vultures are arriving from parts… (more)
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March 2010
The 1- to 2-inch fruiting bodies of the scarlet cup fungus develop their intense red color in late winter. Look for them as soon as the snow melts, usually on fallen hardwood branches / Not too many migrants are back, but local residents, such as cardinals, are more vocal now / Meadow voles breed almost year-round. The first of their… (more)
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February 2010
Hawthorn fruits are nobody’s favorite, but they stay on the tree and are valuable emergency food / With body temperatures now near 40 degrees, woodchucks awaken in their burrows every few days, raise their temperatures to over 94 degrees and urinate / Beginning of the nesting season for great horned owls, our earliest nesters / The viburnums, such as nannyberry… (more)
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January 2010
Jan. 3-4: The Quadrantids meteor shower may produce up to 40 meteors per hour. Best viewing is after midnight / Now the birds are down to a skeleton crew: chickadees, blue jays, a couple of nuthatches, and a few woodpeckers are holding down the fort. Other species pitch in from time to time to brighten the day / Red foxes… (more)
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December 2009
Goldthread stays green all winter. It is a small plant with three-lobed, toothed, shiny leaves / Raccoons and skunks are nomads with a limited sense of territorial ownership. They’ll sometimes take turns using the same woodchuck hole for temporary shelter / Beavers and muskrats must adjust the structure of their lodges to accommodate various water levels. Winter floods or, conversely,… (more)
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November 2009
Yellow jackets are wasps that are often mistakenly called hornets or bees. The workers and males are dead and the queens are hibernating. They will build new nests in the spring / The dead remains of Canada lilies are easy to identify. Look in moist places for upright three-parted capsules on tall candelabra-like stalks / Southbound snow geese will spend… (more)