Site Discussions

Very nice, I noticed just last week before the recent snow, the buds are waiting patiently to burst forth.  They tempt my curiosity to want to watch everyday until I see them open.  Your words inspire me to do just that.  Thank you!

I love clay babies! I went hunting for them in Newbury, VT a number of years ago with a friend and we had the best time! It was like digging for buried treasure. I still have my clay babies and have always wanted to go again so maybe this summer. Now, if I can only remember just where that great spot was… it does sound like their are many other possible locations. Loved the info!

Ross and Todd Caron are my nephews, and we are very proud of the work they did on the cabin!  We visited NH in the spring of 2013 and were able to hike to the cabin.  It was great! The article in Northern Woodlands by Ross was sent to us by my sister, and we thoroughly enjoyed reading all about the process and seeing the wonderful photos!  The reference to my dad, “Grandpa Enman”, was especially meaningful! Keep up the good work, guys!

Great article with good info.  We can tend to think, with their vocalizations being somewhat complex, that they can inform one another of what and who is/has been in their territory as well as what the “intruder” is/was up to. I have jumped them from beds(during the day)  and they left without vocalizing (at least no sounds that a human could hear).

As crazy as it might sound, I’m enjoying the blizzard Western New York is getting today. Maybe it will give me a few more outings on my cross-country skis and it certainly is a bonus to work on my on-line course and not be drawn outside to sunshine.

This is a great article about a critically important and interesting group of animals that need our support.  It’s perfect for kids and adults alike!

Thanks for sharing,

Greg

I have posted a comment here on wolves in Montgomery. Now it is 2014 and for the past few weeks I have been getting very large canine tracks around my house. At first I was like, “Oh look, a coyote track,” until I realized that the track is the size of my hand -  that is no coyote. The paws have to be 4 inches or larger.  I do have a female husky in my home and she may have been in heat.  I took photos of the prints and took them to a local gun shop we go to and he said they were wolf tracks and said, “Do you have a dog?”, I asked why (I thought maybe he wanted me to track the tracks with my dog), he said, “Is it a male or female?”,  I said, “Female”.  he said her heat attracted the wolf to my house. Is this possible? I don’t want a lot of people to know because I don’t want someone to try and kill it before I can actually get it on my trail cam I put on my porch -  plus, I don’t want it dead anyway.  I think it’s truly amazing if it is a wolf.

Just wondering;  Our frost level is down up to nine feet in places.  Any ideas how this will affect the tapping timing?  I have never seen the frost down so deep.(I have been tapping for 30 years) Makes me wonder if this will affect my timing.  If anyone responds, please send a copy to my email address.. DLV

This is a beautiful essay, Michael. You shared your enthusiasm for the natural world through an elegantly clear explanation of how tree buds work.

Now I am torn—do I dissect a bud or try to write a poem about it? :)

As a native of Wisconsin, the sweet birch was a new idea for me when I relocated to the East 15 years ago.  Having given it some attention in the Ulster County Catskills over the last six or seven years, I can report the following:  (1) in this region it makes tremendous growth, developing on the forest fringe like aspen but also able to thrive in density like maple or beech; (2) when dry, it is absolutely superior firewood, comparable to hornbeam or hophornbeam, better than ash or oak; (3) it is often described as “hard and heavy”, and it is—sharp sawblades are a must; (4) it mills well but does tend to warp, check, or move when air-drying, limiting the possibilities of longer boards or wider planks; (5) the subtle grain, pale hue, and considerable strength make it just right for contemporary tastes in flooring, cabinetry, etc.—hard maple is probably the most similar lumber.  Beyond all this, I find it a beautiful shade tree, extraordinarily branchy and leafy, and I also concur with all the above remarks about the evocative scent…  It leafs out relatively early in these parts, but that requires qualification:  I have observed some years in which poplar family trees are among the first to leaf out and some years in which they are toward the end; thus the birches (yellow, black, and white), depending on age and location are sometimes close to first and sometimes not.  Earlier than oaks and ashes for sure, and in autumn their leaves turn with just a bit of cold (pale yellow) but sometimes hold on the branches for a while.  They disintegrate almost immediately, as does the wood.  It is some of the least durable lumber in the northeast forest.

I had never heard of clay babies. What a wonderful article! Thanks.

During this mating/cleansing season (mid-February to mid-March) it’s easy and fun to communicate with the coyotes after dark.  Simply go outside and howl simulating a coyote and they will howl/yap back.  It’s great fun when you engage children to join in.

Twice, in the past, I’ve heard what sounded like a group of coyotes late at night, barking and yipping . On one occasion the frequency and intensity of it rose, then abruptly stopped. I imagined a “pack” chasing prey, then going silent as they made the kill. Mitchell’s study, however, brings out other possible scenarios.

Greetings Dave - despite nearly perfect sap flow conditions yesterday (03/08/14) we got very little sap from our 1200 +/- taps. Across the board - vacuum tubing, gravity runs and buckets - not much happening.  Nervous here as well about the season…My fear is the third week of March rolls around and it is 50 degrees and raining.  Time will tell…

I stopped to notice Gingko tree buds with my son just yesterday. Funny—how one can go further and further, diving deeper into various levels of intricacy, through closer looks at the familiar. Thank you for exposing me more fully to the wonders of buds, and giving me some new language for it, Michael. Especially ptyxix—a word that itself looks as though it has been folded in on itself several times.

Good article Brian.  Thanks.  As for long hunting and trapping seasons being shortsighted (see comment above), I beg to differ.  Research indicates that any void in coyote populations are filled with increased reproduction. Indeed, coyotes have suffered bounties, poisoning campaigns, shooting from aircraft, and legal hunting, yet continue to thrive.  I always enjoy seeing a track, catching a rare glimpse of one, and hearing them crank up their song, and now more fully understand what they might be saying.

For people like me that believe that the climate is changing, and will always change at a rate slower that those that will be dead before they know the change was in fact slower than expected. For the climate changes very, very slowly and sounding the alarm of impending catastrophe by making statements, for example, that “Boston’s climate will be similar to Atlanta’s” is ridiculous and only serves to anger those of us that simply believe for good, rational reasons that the variations we are seeing in the weather over the past one to two-hundred years is simply noise and means nothing in the scope of actual climate change which is occurring slowly over periods of thousands of years. What’s the big deal that mean temperatures have increased by 3.8 degrees since 1835 and that 70% of that increase happened since 1970. I mean, that’s weather folks. 1970 is about half of the 88-year normal solar activity cycle. We all know that the Earth has been getting warmer since the last ice age. It’s going to get “permanently” warmer but it’s going to take thousands of years more for that to happen.

Please just stop discussing the weather as if it were climate change. Climate change occurs over thousands of years and anything that happens in less time than that is the weather. If the weather is changing Mother Nature will fix it (and anything that’s messing with her) in the next hundred years or so. We have nothing to worry about and there is nothing we can do about it, nothing, and articles like this are what you can read in any end-of-the-world environmentalist rag. I thought Northern Woodlands was above that noise.

According to the Malenkovich Theory, the Glacial Phenomenons are explained. It is believed by some scientists, that there have been ten Glacial Periods since the formation of Earth.

Great blog and photos Dave. Hopefully the sap will start running again soon.

I saw a possum on the ground near the bird feeder. After a while it started to walk away then turned around and entered my shed, where I saw it disappear through a space in the floor. This was sighted around noon.