Last July, Rich Kelley posted a most unusual photograph to the Vermont Birding Facebook group with the caption, “Someone bit off more than he could chew.”
The photo, taken in the Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge, showed a belted kingfisher weighted down by a mussel clamped firmly onto its beak. They were locked in an embrace that, absent intervention, would have been fatal for both. Thankfully, Rich effected a rescue. [Read more…] about The Kingfisher and Mussel: How They Met In An Unusual Death Grip
Aside from humans, perhaps no other species can modify its surroundings for its own purposes as much as beaver.
The Ballston Terminal Railroad in Saratoga County, NY, opened on August 6, 1898.
I first became acquainted with my neighborhood red-bellied woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) when it visited my bird feeders last winter. Sporting a black-and-white-striped back with a red nape, this medium-sized woodpecker certainly made a visual impression.
If you’ve spent any time on trails, particularly on rocky mountain tops or in desert-like environments, you’ve likely come across a cairn.
What could be more symbolic of British imperial domination, immorality, and unfettered disrespect for human life than the murder of Jane McCrea at the hands of British-allied Indians near Fort Edward, NY, on July 26, 1777?
There was a sucking sound as my rubber boot sank into the deep black muck. Naturalist Jon Binhammer and I were standing in the middle of a hardwood swamp in central Vermont.
On July 23, 1885, at 8:08 am, Ulysses S. Grant lost his final battle, dying from cancer of the throat and tongue. He died on Mt. McGregor in Saratoga County, in Drexel’s Cottage (now known as Grant Cottage) where Grant and his family spent the last 5½ weeks.
As you swat away blackflies this summer, look closely; it may be that not all those flies are flies. Some of them might be tiny sweat bees, members of the Halictidae family, which gets its common name because some species will lick sweat from human skin.