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Snapshot NY Citizen Science Wildlife Monitoring Project

June 21, 2026 by Anthony F. Hall Leave a Comment

Snapshot NY, a citizen science program created by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Cornell University in 2025, will begin Year Two in July.

The innovative program, which enables the public to participate in the state’s efforts to monitor wildlife by deploying privately-owned trail cameras, has already enlisted more than 800 volunteers. [Read more…] about Snapshot NY Citizen Science Wildlife Monitoring Project

Meadow Jumping Mice: Spring’s Late Riser

April 23, 2026 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Spring is often portrayed as the season of rebirth, and for many organisms it is. But spring is also the season of reawakening for those species that spend the winter in some form of hibernation or reduced metabolic activity.

We have reached the point in our annual commute around the sun when the increased daylight and temperature act as a physiological alarm, rousing organisms from slumber. Some species are harder to roust, stirring from their sleep only when the calendar approaches mid-spring. [Read more…] about Meadow Jumping Mice: Spring’s Late Riser

Red Foxes: The Most Widely Distributed Carnivore in the World

December 18, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) have characteristic red fur, black “stockings” on their legs, and bushy, white-tipped tails (although their coats have some color variation). Males are generally larger than females. Individuals normally range from 8-15 pounds as adults and vary in total length from 48-57 inches. The tail accounts for nearly half of that length.

Red foxes are omnivorous (eat both plants and animals). Their diet varies with the seasons and includes small mammals like mice, rabbits, and squirrels, as well as plants, insects, fish, frogs, birds and their eggs, carrion, and even fruit. [Read more…] about Red Foxes: The Most Widely Distributed Carnivore in the World

Creating Caches: Winter Preparation

October 19, 2025 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

On a recent walk in the Maine woods, I heard a red-breasted nuthatch calling softly to itself. It was six feet above me in a large white pine, climbing down the tree headfirst. Looking through my binoculars, I saw that the nuthatch was carrying a red spruce seed, which it slotted under a piece of knobby bark before flying off into a tangle of branches and cones on a nearby spruce.

The bird soon reappeared on the pine, 15 feet higher this time, and stashed another seed under the bark on a large horizontal branch. It was still late summer then, but the nuthatch was already planning for winter. [Read more…] about Creating Caches: Winter Preparation

Wild Nuts: An Important Food Source

September 29, 2025 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

Fall is an especially good time to find all kinds of nuts on the forest floor, in a picnic area in the park, or maybe even in your neighborhood or back yard. Let’s take a look and learn how to identify some of these wild nuts.

In technical botanical terms, all of these “nuts” are called the “fruit.” The fruit is defined as the seed and the package which holds the seed. So, for example, the acorn is the fruit of an oak tree, and inside is the nut which is a type of seed. If you use plant keys you will see those terms, but for general use, it is OK to call them all nuts. [Read more…] about Wild Nuts: An Important Food Source

Tracking Animals in the Snow

January 6, 2025 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

The newly blanketed, snowy ground can be a magical, serene image. But take a closer look. Do you see tracks in the snow? If so, you just might have the chance to glimpse into the lives of some of the animals that live there. [Read more…] about Tracking Animals in the Snow

White-footed Mice Seeking Warm House

December 27, 2024 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

During winter, I often hear gnawing and the scurrying of little feet inside the walls of our house. Mice have taken shelter in our old farmhouse again.

Although I hate killing the cute creatures, after we had to hire a carpenter twice to remove sections of our walls and take out smelly mouse nests, we resorted to trapping them, since our cats couldn’t get at the mice inside the walls. We began with livetraps, but the mice just returned, so now we use snap traps. [Read more…] about White-footed Mice Seeking Warm House

The Effects of Our Decreasing Snow Cover

February 24, 2024 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

When it comes to winter in the North Country, brown is not beautiful. Climate change has brought sudden and extreme fluctuations in weather along with a dramatic decline in the amount of snowfall that blankets the ground. This is especially marked in the Northeast, where winter is warming faster than the national average. [Read more…] about The Effects of Our Decreasing Snow Cover

Pine Cones: The Complicated Lives of Conifer Seeds

January 20, 2024 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

My yard is full of eastern white pine trees, and every three years or so, it is full of pine cones. This is one of those years. Pine cones have fallen all over the yard, the sidewalk, the driveway.

The neighborhood wildlife seem pleased by this bounty. A resident gray squirrel has made a fallen log in my yard its snack site. Pine cone fragments are neatly arranged in a circle around the squirrel’s perch. [Read more…] about Pine Cones: The Complicated Lives of Conifer Seeds

Woodland Jumping Mouse

August 20, 2023 by Tom Kalinowski Leave a Comment

Sitting around a campfire after dusk, it is sometimes possible to catch sight of a small rodent bounding across a section of the forest floor that is illuminated by the glow of the flames or a bright moon. Similarly, a small creature may occasionally be seen in the headlights of a car leaping across a road like a frog, but at a distinctly faster pace. [Read more…] about Woodland Jumping Mouse

Cabin Pantry Discovery

May 27, 2023 by Edward Zahniser Leave a Comment

Cabin Pantry Discovery

On first opening the cabin for summer,
on a pantry shelf sits a mustard jar
amidst ubiquitous mouse droppings.

Mice are so sly that we do not deny
their being at coining speech—here,
say: homonyms of spices and species.

How Animals Stay Warm In Winter

March 18, 2023 by Guest Contributor 2 Comments

To survive the cold of winter, some animals take advantage of protected habitats, such as wooded areas or under a blanket of insulating snow. Ruffed grouse, for example, fly into piles of loose snow and create roosting cavities to rest in when not foraging. Mice and other small mammals remain active in tunnels under the snow. [Read more…] about How Animals Stay Warm In Winter

The Trouble with Rodenticides

November 5, 2022 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

Last autumn, around the same time I was laying the winter quilt on our bed, my cat became very interested in the space beneath the kitchen sink. Unsurprisingly, a mouse was huddled down there, seeking shelter in the warmth. Though I was sympathetic, and all wildlife is welcome in our yard, I’d prefer they remain outside the house. What to do? [Read more…] about The Trouble with Rodenticides

Woodland Jumping Mice are Truffle Specialists

November 19, 2021 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

“Shhh,” I tell my 5-year-old son, “there are animals sleeping, right under our feet.” He presses his ear against the frozen ground, hoping to hear the slow, sleepy breath of a snoozing mammal.

I tell him that if he could pull back the earth like a blanket and peek in, he might see a small, mousey ball of white, black, and yellowy-orange fur curled tightly inside a nest of dried grasses and dead leaves.

A long, sparsely-furred tail would be coiled like a thin ribbon around this little package: a woodland jumping mouse, whose pre-hibernation diet consists largely of truffles. [Read more…] about Woodland Jumping Mice are Truffle Specialists

Our Hibernating Jumping Mice

March 17, 2021 by Tom Kalinowski 1 Comment

Winter is the time when wildlife activity ebbs. Many residents of our fields and forests have retreated to shelters beneath the surface of the soil in an attempt to escape this season of low temperatures, snow and ice, and little if any food.

The woodland jumping mouse (Napaeozapus insignis) is one member of our wildlife community that retires to the seclusion of a cushiony nest underground and lapses into a profound state of dormancy, known as true hibernation, for roughly six months beginning sometime in mid-October. [Read more…] about Our Hibernating Jumping Mice

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