A few stubborn oaks still cling to brown leaves, but for the most part, trees are rid of foliage, giving forests a different look and feel. Landscapes are more intimately studied, their layers and intersections well within view. A low sun pierces empty crowns, illuminating...
A large chunk of pellet for dissection. Note: Accompanying needles suggest the owner of this pellet likely prefers a certain white pine perch. Steep Rock Association trustee, committee chair, and conservation easement landowner, Natalie Dyer, poked into the office this spring possessing some treasure. “It’s...
It’s that time of year again when thrushes and warblers serenade forest dwellers, buds burst, and a rejuvenated environment even teases of summer with an occasional tree frog sounding off. For Steep Rock Association, these cues trigger a certain stewardship action being the monitoring of...
Wildlife baby season: if you care, leave them there“Hello Steep Rock? My cat brought a baby bunny into the house. It doesn’t look injured, but what should I do with it? I think it’s too young to be away from its mother.”Calls of concern similar...
With snowshoes strapped, baggies at the ready, and GPS fixed, I head out into one of Steep Rock Association’s (SRA) preserves characterized as overgrown field rejoicing my career choices and the presence of such preserved land. A cold-water stream runs through it. Seeps percolate from...
They’re not the easiest to obtain. Stooping, crawling, and dipping through young forest, citizen scientists with Steep Rock Association (SRA) earned their cottontail scat (or pellets). The native species, New England Cottontail (NEC), prefer this brambly habitat type over more open fields and meadows where...
Three bald eagles of varying age were observed on Lake Waramaug this morning. The photos below depict morphological changes immature eagles undergo as they reach maturity. It usually takes four to five years to develop the characteristic white head and tail of adults. An adult...
A cattail falls to the blade of my brush cutter, grudgingly smacking my face and exploding into a cloud of seed. Reed canary grass, invasive by nature, has also colonized this wet meadow of Macricostas Preserve that parallels Route 202, and its eradication is the...
Eastern (red-spotted) newt (Notophthalmus viridescens) in eft life stage The air is thick with moisture this morning. My glasses quickly fog and I remove them, decidedly better off with just sub-par vision. Thunder claps in the distance and I realize the day’s rain may arrive earlier...