Community Based Conservation of Migratory Amphibians
It’s Only Natural By Martha Klein In our highly mobile society, there are four million miles of roads and 200 million vehicles, so it’s not surprising that there are several million deaths of vertebrates every year on United States roads. For some species of animals, roadkill can take out 20 percent or more of their […]
Bad and Beautiful, Purple Loosestrife Threatens Norfolk’s Wetlands
By Shelley Harms Purple loosestrife has been spotted this summer in wet spots along Norfolk roadsides. A showy plant with spikes of magenta flowers, it spreads very rapidly. It can take over large areas, suppressing native plant communities and actually altering a wetland’s structure and function. Purple loosestrife (lythrum salicaria) is a perennial that can […]
A Striped Menace Threatens Our Ponds and Lakes
By Star Childs As summer approaches and thoughts turn to boating on freshwater lakes and rivers, everyone must be vigilant of a new ecological threat to our bodies of water. Zebra mussels, Dreissena polymorpha, have made their way from the distant Black and Caspian Seas of Eurasia and Russia to our Great Lakes and other […]
Invasive Beetles Threaten Woodlands
New England Maples at Risk By Shelley Harms The Asian Long-Horned Beetle and the Emerald Ash Borer have not been reported in Connecticut, but they may be here nonetheless. As spring approaches, residents should be vigilant for signs of these insects, which kill trees when their larvae bore through and feed under the bark. […]
Restoration of the American chestnut is ongoing
Once King of the Forest By Veronica Burns The demise of the American elm from village greens and town streets registered more with the public than the demise of the American chestnut. The chestnut was located in the woods of rural America and its disappearance was noted mostly by rural communities, where livelihoods depended on […]
Preventing & Removing Invasive Species
Norfolk Attacks Invaders By Shelley Harms Norfolkians know we have a special, mostly unspoiled hometown and, having lost our chestnuts and elms to foreign pathogens, we know the threat posed by invasive species. Lately, many of us have been waging an all-out assault to remove the invasives that are trying to take over our landscape, […]
It’s Only Natural
The Bridge By John G. Funchion To the distant observer, the yellow streaks atop the ancient gray, stone bridge traversing the rain fed stream meandering through Norfolk’s Battell-Stoeckel estate strike a chord of wonderment and curiosity. Closer observation reveals an image created by the plantings of over 200 golden yellow (viola pedunculata) and purple […]
It’s Only Natural
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree By Starling Childs With the arrival of the holiday season, it is time to consider the Christmas tree again. I have always loved the idea of bringing a tree into the house and, much to my wife’s dismay, I always put off the day that it has to […]
It’s Only Natural
Fall Leaves By John G. Funchion Whenever I think of Fall, invariably I envision millions of leaves in an act of final separation, ritualistically descending from their woody moorings to the ground in one of nature’s most interesting phenomena. Leaves don’t always fall from a tree in the same way. To the casual eye, the […]
Have You Hugged a Logger Today?
By Star Childs At Great Mountain, we have an old truck with a fading bumper sticker that reads, “Have you hugged a Logger today?” In part, the message is poking fun at the label for environmental activists opposed to timber harvesting, who are often known as “tree huggers”. But the message is dead serious when […]
