History, Natural History & the Arts
If you get a chance this winter, take a peek through the icy window of a pond surface. You may see water boatmen (order Hemiptera: Family Corixidae) clinging to the pond floor.
Long oar-like hind legs propel these insects, inspiring their common name. Shorter, scoop-like front legs are used for feeding and singing. [Read more…] about Water Boatmen During Winter
Fifty years ago, the U.S. Congress passed the Clean Water Act. This landmark legislation has been critical in protecting and restoring the Lake Champlain Basin’s water quality, fisheries, wetlands, wildlife, recreation, and cultural resources.
To recognize the Act’s importance, the Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership (CVNHP) and the Lake Champlain Basin Program (LCBP) have spearheaded a commemoration of the anniversary with a variety of events, activities, and publications in 2022. [Read more…] about Lake Champlain Basin Commemorating the Clean Water Act
Sunlight glinted off the water as we paddled our canoe along a winding channel which led through a marsh of tall grasses and wild rice. Two white, long-legged birds – great egrets – stalked the shallow water, poised to spear fish with their pointed bills. A bald eagle landed in a tree, squawking as it joined its mate. After four miles of canoeing down the Missisquoi River in northwestern Vermont we had reached the point where the river enters Lake Champlain. [Read more…] about Wildlife Mosaics: Paddling Freshwater Marshes
As spring warms the water, a turtle, covered by leaves and mud at the bottom of a wetland where she hibernated for the winter, awakens. Emerging from the water, she basks on shore. The sun illuminates her bright yellow throat and her high, domed shell, or carapace, dark and shiny with light flecks.
The underside of her shell, or plastron, is yellow with black patches around the edges. The plastron is hinged, so the turtle can retreat inside and partially close her shell. At 7 to 9 inches long, she is much larger than the familiar painted turtle. This is a Blanding’s turtle, named for the early Pennsylvania physician and naturalist, William Blanding, who first described the species in the early 1800s. [Read more…] about The Endangered Blanding’s Turtle: A Primer
If you’ve never seen – or heard of – the southern bog lemming, you’re not alone. Although this small mammal scurries through our landscape year-round, it is elusive by nature.
So elusive, in fact, that the southern bog lemming (Synaptomys cooperi) is listed as a species of greatest conservation need in the northeastern states – mainly because scientists struggle to find and track these rodents. [Read more…] about Southern Bog Lemmings
Throughout northeastern North America, ducks are setting up nests and hatching out ducklings. New York State’s
Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is in the first year of a four-year effort to better understand mallard movements and how they affect their breeding success. [Read more…] about Duck Nesting Season Is In Full Swing
New York State is home to over two million acres of freshwater wetlands. Freshwater wetlands are lands typically covered with water, are very wet, but are not connected to the ocean or estuary.
Freshwater wetlands have many different names including bogs, swamps, marshes, vernal pools, potholes, and fens. May is American Wetlands Month. [Read more…] about May is American Wetlands Month
The life cycles of the three species of stream salamanders native to the Northeast – northern two-lined, northern dusky, and spring – are closely tied to the small streams where they are found. All three species belong to the Plethodontidae family, which are lungless salamanders that breathe through their skin.
Stream salamanders forage for small invertebrates both on land and in water and have a lengthy aquatic larval stage during which breathing is done with gills. The presence and persistence of these amphibians, therefore, can be greatly affected by the condition of the forested buffer along streams, as well as other factors, including atmospheric pollution. [Read more…] about Northeastern Stream Salamanders
On a winter day, I drove down to a nearby wetland bisected by a town road and walked carefully onto the ice. I was looking for cattail heads to dissect so I could meet the caterpillars who overwinter inside the seed fluff. Many of the cattails I found that day had blown over during the previous week’s windstorm, but there were enough still standing for me to collect two from each side of the road. [Read more…] about Cozy Cattails: A Caterpillar Haven
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has released a draft Access and Public Use Plan (APUP) for the Utica Marsh Wildlife Management Area (WMA). The draft plan is available for public comment until December 22nd. [Read more…] about Utica Marsh Wildlife Area Comments Sought