Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Wildlife for Blog”
Many areas in this country have icon species that add richness to their sense of place. The Texas Gulf Coast is busy working to restore the iconic Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, and we have here in the Connecticut River watershed the American shad (Alosa sapidissima).
Connecticut is at the infestation epicenter of a beast that kills some 200 Americans a year; injures at least 10,000 others; is annually responsible for billions of dollars in property damage; trashes native ecosystems; and spreads an infection that causes fever, headache, fatigue, and, if untreated, injury to joints, heart, and brain.
In the marsh, the wilderness makes its last stand.” So wrote the eminent New England bird man, Edward Howe Forbush, now more than a century ago.
“Head for the inlets, where the sea breaks through,” wrote Roger Tory Peterson,* “if you wish to see birds by the hundreds”; and this 14-year-old had dearly wished to do just that. I asked my dad, who had grown up here at the mouth of the Connecticut, and he knew of exactly such an inlet.
Like a tree trunk dividing upward into branches and small twigs, our river systems have incredible complexity. The Connecticut River drains a vast, 11,000-acre watershed with many tributaries. Species of migratory fish ascended most of these, to differing degrees, depending upon which species and which tributary.
Examples of citizen science at work might be as simple and meaningful as sampling water quality in a local stream for the Nature Conservancy or helping wildlife biologists count salmon that are using fish ladders to get around hydro dams and leap upstream to spawn in rivers like the mighty Connecticut River.
Ten meters above the water a herring gull glides and casts a dark shadow that cannot be a shadow, cannot be directly below him nor as cleanly defined in the absent brightness of not-yet-day.
They might be called all sorts of unkind (and unjust) names, like “bully,” “nuisance,” or “thief,” but I still like blue jays.
But from the first few dreamy days of April on well into May, where better to discover springtime than in one’s own patch of cozy, quaint New England woods?
The word peregrine is derived from pilgrim or wanderer. A fitting name for a species that may travel as much as 15,000 miles in a year to complete its migratory journey.
How many times have you seen an injured animal or bird and wanted to assist it, but didn’t know where to turn?
But from the first few dreamy days of April on well into May, where better to discover springtime than in one’s own patch of cozy, quaint New England woods?
Streamside walking connects us with the splendors of flowing water on our Water Planet.
As black bear populations continue to grow in the Connecticut River Valley and beyond, now more than ever there’s a need for people and public officials to work together to sustain a healthy bear population.
Years ago, I had a close encounter with a big antlered buck, or male white-tailed deer, that I will never forget.
But from the first few dreamy days of April on well into May, where better to discover springtime than in one’s own patch of cozy, quaint New England woods?
Years ago, I had a close encounter with a big antlered buck, or male white-tailed deer, that I will never forget.
But from the first few dreamy days of April on well into May, where better to discover springtime than in one’s own patch of cozy, quaint New England woods?
Snowy owls have always fascinated me. Not only are they stunningly beautiful, but I’ve heard they are incredibly fast, powerful predators.
The Hartford portion of the Audubon Christmas bird count is unlike any other in the Connecticut River Watershed.