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When you hear the phrase, “forest birds,” what comes to mind? Tall, mature oaks and pines spanning ridge tops? Riverbank guardians of sycamore and willows? Thick, young stands of aspen and birch? Low-lying bottomlands of red maple and black gum? The amazing assortment of plant communities in the Chesapeake Bay watershed sets the stage for …
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Are you missing professional sports as the nation pulls together to slow the spread of COVID-19? In case watching old games is getting…well…old, we figured that our first ever Forests for the Birds celebration of spring would be the perfect occasion to highlight the avian Major League Baseball mascots and the teams that endear these …
I love being in the woods at all times of the year. I’ll even gladly take the bitter cold of winter or sweltering heat of summer. But forests in the spring are exciting! A good month before most trees leaf out, another cadre of old friends return to our lives: spring ephemeral wildflowers. There is …
Despite the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been facing lately, it’s technically not spring yet. In fact, our Chesapeake Forests Team is just beginning to prepare for the spring riparian buffer, or streamside tree, planting season in Pennsylvania. The two main ways we prepare for planting season are by live staking (propagation by cutting) and flagging …
Romance is in the air. For the American woodcock (Scolopax minor), that’s a literal statement. The courtship ritual of the woodcock is the most elaborate that I’ve seen outside of Homo sapiens, and is a must-see for lovers of forests, birds, or flirtation. In the southerly parts of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, lucky residents may …
There are many good reasons to have a lawn. A lawn can be used for overflow parking, a space for children and dogs to play, or as a stable surface for heavy foot traffic around buildings and houses. But about ten percent of the land in the Chesapeake Bay watershed is lawn cover. Do we …
Folklore is a popular topic of conversation this time of year, and the Philippines, a country consisting of more than 7,600 islands in Southeast Asia in the Pacific Ocean, generates its fair share of ancient, creepy and mythical beasts. Consider the aswang (or evil shape shifter) known as Gumon. The Gumon literally has killer hair …
Are you afraid of the dark? Walking through a forest in upstate New York, you come across a damp, dark cave. You are keen to move past it, fearful of what lies within. You hurry forwards when out of the corner of your eye an eerie greenish glow appears. Are you seeing things? What could …
Our streams need trees. The very best thing we can do for water quality is to protect and increase the amount of streamside (or, if you’re inclined to speak Latin, riparian) forest cover. In the conservation world we call these strips of recently planted streamside trees riparian forest buffers; they are protecting our water bodies …
You’re walking through the woods on a crisp, late October afternoon, smelling the sharp scent of decaying leaves and listening to the dry rustle of beech leaves in the breeze. You decide to take a break, sit on an old stump, munch an apple and observe this amazing world…but, what is that reaching up next …
