Site Discussions

A good example of how area is measured. I met a forester who had just graduated. His first job was to slash alder within a cut block. His bid was based on $/acre. He won the bid but later realized that all the land was in very steep terrain and was effectively a substantially larger and more difficult area to work in.

It’s hard to say, John. They’re opportunistic nomads, so if they find the habitat around your house amenable in winter, they might be back. Of course their diet will change in fall and then again in winter, so it’s probably more likely that they’ll have a separate winter range. And the birds will be bigger, which might make those particular trees less desirable.

I have a family of turkeys spending the night in my trees nightly for about the last three weeks. Will this continue into the winter? They are locust trees, but there are also scrub pines around. Just wondering if they’re around for the winter- I have three fish ponds and they probably drink out of them in the morning before I get up because I find feathers around the yard.

We observed that the deerflies chase our car down the driveway (wooded) and attack the side view mirrors.

Effective solution - tape a glue pot to each mirror and drive up and down three times.  They nose dive into the glue and are stuck.

Record haul for one day was over 100 flies. 

Why do they attack the mirrors? My theory is they look like big ears.

I’m interested in introducing American bullfrogs into my small farm pond.  I see there are many places online to buy bullfrog tadpoles.  Would these be successful in my pond? What time of year would be best to release them into the pond?
Thanks!

How interesting to find this. In 1932 Christine Magoon bought a house out in Worcester with my husband’s great grandfather, Carl Stridsberg. They worked together at the Hotel Barre, not sure if that is where they met. They sold the house and Carl bought property in Berlin. I believe they were still together until at least the mid 60’s but not really sure. He died in 1971. I would be interested in her obituary which I haven’t been able to find, a photo of her from during the time they were together, and any other information as I’m working on the family history and clearly she was an important part of his life.

I watched two cecropia caterpillars in my yard on a native plum for almost a month, I think. It got huge and then in the past week started getting oozy at head and tail. The next day, there were flies and such on it. This morning it was dead on the ground. I haven’t yet had the time to read the article above, but it sounds like parasites then, huh? I have photo from a few different stages if you want me to send them somehow. Thank you.

My mother planted parsley and dill in pots on our back deck to find the parsley FULL of swallowtail caterpillars. We had seen the adults flitting in the butterfly garden and I was pleased as punch to give up the parsley for these little babes.

Would a Tananger in Nepa, PA begin molting in August?

It is a little frustrating to find no answers, really, to these astonishing cairns. We have a great many in our area, partially collapsed but with petroglyphs, effigies, wall carvings you can’t believe,  and some amazing stone masonry. There’s also some painted images (no, really). What is so crazy is a baffling refusal to acknowledge anything is here at all. Early settlers they were not.

No professionals here, we’ve just been looking at someone’s veritable ghost town- and their tools, for over a decade. A large civilization had to have been responsible for so much evidence to have been left but nope- can’t convince anyone to look, much less research. Seems to us we’re missing a hugely valuable piece of history.

Climate change is warming up the planet. In turn, this is affecting the estrus cycles of deer. Unfortunately, drought causes less food to be available.
Less than 4% of the Earth’s s wild animal herds, counted in 1900 are alive today.
We are in an age of extinction.

We are raising Monarch caterpillars. They kept disappearing from our milkweed so we decided to bring them in to be safe. So glad we did. One emerged and it was an amazing experience.  We currently have three chrsysalis and five about to j shape any moment. We also found the leaf rollers or European Skipper infesting our Canna Lillie’s. We are waiting to watch this turn as it’s in chrysalis now.  If that all wasn’t enough, we found four woolly bears and are raising them. We homeschool our kids and this has turned out to be the best summer science project.

I am very fortunate to have found this webpage!  On July 29, 2018, my wife and I (and hundreds of others) witnessed a dragonfly migration on the beach in Truro, Cape Cod. Truly an amazing experience!  In this instance, they were flying parallel to the shoreline in a northwestward direction.

I’m glad you enjoyed the article, Ethan and Susan. And I agree that house wrens are a pleasure to watch and hear, despite their sometimes-surly behavior.

What a wonderful article. Thank you for posting this!

Very informative. Thank you. Just wish there was some mention of the predators of the little rodents that are killed with such reckless abandon. They DO play a role.

Currently dealing with my first full blown Lyme’s infection that medication didn’t help and now doing naturopath, herbs and nutrition, but also wondering…didn’t the early Native American’s burn to rid the land of pestilence and weeds? Isn’t there more we could do to manage our land for ticks? Vaccine would be a blessing for all, but too late for me. Not feeling so great about this right of passage, so to speak. It’s tough. But I will never stop being a woodswoman (unless a tick takes me down).

I have wrens in my yard and the male had started nests in 4-5 boxes before the couple decided on one near my back patio.  They have chased out a chickadee family that started there first, which is sad too, but they are so fun to watch. On the rainy evening all 6 babies fledged was just so cute, they were hiding from the rain under our BBQ grill cover; it was adorable.  Wrens can be very aggressive, but they are so active and I enjoy watching how hard they work.

Very well-written and informative article. While working at the Army Cold Regions Lab in Hanover, Doug Hardy and I installed two pea stone nesting pads on the last remaining stone-covered roof at the facility.  I am not sure if the nighthawks ever visited the pads since we put them in in 2008 as nobody is monitoring them.

Enjoyed your article Carolyn.  I’ve persuaded house wrens to choose one of the other dummy nests too.  One year they nested in a front yard box on a suburban neighborhood road.  Not only are they clever, territorial and darn industrious but they are also operatic musical and loud.  I had neighbors commenting on how loud…needless to say, those dummy nests get removed each year too.