Don’t know why, but a lovely, tiny winter wren has come to my feeder.  As i understand it from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, they usually hop around on the ground looking for insects and avoid the black-oil sunflower seeds. Maybe he just flew in to see what everybody else was having: Dozens of sparrows, titmice, cardinals, chickadees and woodpeckers call my yard their winter home. Anyway, I’m very honored. to be hosting this new guy, and i hope he stays.

I love the way his little tail constantly bobs, as if he’s writing something with a quill pen.

I shall now try to append a photo of your typical winter wren, filched from the Cornell site, to this blog. Wish me luck! And if that doesn’t work, you can just go to the Lab’s winter-wren page: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Winter_Wren/id

Sept. 27 marks the 50^th anniversary of the publication by Houghton Mifflin of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” surely one of the most influential books of the 20^th century. It raised the alarm about the harmful effects of pesticides on a wide variety of life forms, including insects, birds and humans, and was the impetus that created the environmental protection movement.
First serialized in the “New Yorker” in the spring and summer of 1962, the book shocked the nation and was an instant best-seller. The chemical industry spent a huge amount of money and time vilifying Carson and trying to stop her warnings from spreading. She was portrayed as an “hysterical woman,” even a Communist. But Rachel Carson was simply a brilliant, concerned biologist who could both see the big picture of what was happening and put it into words that everyone could understand.
Anyway, both Carson and her book weathered the storm. Millions of people worldwide rallied to the cause. The Kennedy administration ordered an investigation into the book’s claims, and that investigation led to the banning of DDT in the United States and to the eventual creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Pesticides remain a threat to birds, humans and other life forms. The fact that her words, written half a century ago, still resonate shows the power of “Silent Spring,” and how it helped to improve our lives and ensure healthier lives for future generations.

Here’s how we can all help maintain the legacy of “Silent Spring”:

* Avoid using chemical pesticides, and then only in the smallest amounts needed;

* Dispose of chemical pesticides as instructed on their original containers, and never throw unused pesticides down a drain or a storm sewer.

* Donate to the Nature Conservancy, the Xerces Society or the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference to support their habitat creation and advocacy work;

* Keep Rachel Carson’s memory alive by reading or re-reading “Silent Spring” and recommending it to everyone you know.

This morning I spent a few minutes transfixed by the sight of the long-haired, blonde, feral cat my neighbor feeds, merrily torturing a monarch butterfly in our back yard.

I was walking out to the compost barrel when I saw her (the cat, not my neighbor) crouched and batting something back and forth in the high grass before her, sometimes letting it go, then making little jumps to catch it again in a gruesome little game of “Breakfast is On Me.”

At first I thought her unlucky victim must be a mouse or a vole. She saw me just after I spotted her, and stopped stock-still, looked at me and silently but very distinctly said: “What are you looking at? I’m not doing anything. In fact, just to prove it, I’ll hold this little morsel down with one paw and idly lick my other paw and then yawn. Then I’ll just stare right back at you forever; I’ve got all day.”

She disdainfully watched me take a few more steps toward the barrel and then grew bored with me. She resumed playing with her food, and it was then I saw it was a butterfly. A few times, just to amuse herself, I suppose, she let it get away for a moment. Each time it would start to fly but, with now-tattered wings, couldn’t get up very far, and Blondie would instantly catch it again in her claws. Last I saw, she was strutting around the yard with her breakfast mostly protruding from her mouth, one orange-and-black wing still fluttering.

Ah, Nature.

What’s the point of lighting up the Sam’s Point parking area like a Christmas tree?

That area is supposed to be one of the last great wild places. These days, it looks more like the Chrysler building: high and well-lit.

i wonder how the people who live nearby like all that light-pollution. Somebody ought to look into this.

Don't miss "Trailsfest 2012," Saturday, May 19, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Kingston!

The New York-New Jersey Trail Conference and other outdoor organizations,
retailers and groups will celebrate hiking and outdoor recreation in the
Catskill Mountain Region, hosted by Kenco the Work and Play Outfitter.

Free and open to the public.

It will be held at Kenco, 1000 Hurley Mountain Road, Kingston.

For more info, email Jeff Senterman at jsenterman@nynjtc.org.

The new issue of “Car and Travel,” AAA’s abysmal magazine for members, has a featured story on the state’s “7 Natural Wonders” that we all should, supposedly, make road trips to this summer. Only one of them involves the mid-Hudson Valley: a trip to “the Gunks and Catskills.”

That’s quite a conflation.

Assuming, as always, that their readers are driving from Manhattan, they tell us to take Thruway Exit 18 and head to New Paltz. What would be much faster and easier would be to just take the Metro-North to one of the the state’s much closer-to-the-City “natural wonders,” Breakneck Mountain. The trains stop right there on weekends.

And every day, the trains stop at another, even closer,  great place: Cold Spring. From the station you can easily walk up the village’s fun Main Street and across Rt. 9D to a wonderful hike up Bull Hill (also known as Mount Taurus). In Cold Spring, you can also rent a kayak and shoot underneath the train trestle (an adventure in itself, depending on the tides) into the wild and peaceful  Constitution Marsh, or just paddle around in the Hudson among the boaters and fishers. You can follow up your experience on one of the country’s great rivers with a beer and/or meal, ranging from plain to fancy, at any of Cold Spring’s many eateries.

Oddly, they also omitted the  swimming and hiking available at Rockland Lake State Park, from whose Hook Mountain you can see the skyline of Gotham; the world-famous Bear Mountain and Harriman State Parks; and the hiking on Storm King, Schunnemunk and Black Rock — all of which are way closer to NYC than New Paltz is.

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised at these goofs, though, in a publication that amounts, issue after issue, to nothing more than one long, typo-riddled advertisement for their latest cruise-line “partner.”

Introductions will soon be in order: High Point, New Jersey, meet Minnewaska State Park; Fahnestock State Park, meet Hudson Highlands State Park. And meet they will, after years of effort on both sides of the Hudson to create unbroken greenways linking one famous outdoor paradise to another.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Land Trust Alliance, on April 23 in Rochester’s Seneca Park, announced 53 Conservation Partnership Program grants, totaling $1.4 million. The grants, funded through New York State’s Environmental Protection Fund, will be matched by $1.2 million in private and local funding.
Notably among these gifts, a $27,000 EPF grant to the New York New Jersey Trail Conference will support a major project in the Southern Gunks. This project will create an unbroken recreation and wildlife corridor linking the Catskill Forest Preserve and the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

The Southern Gunks, part of the Shawangunk Ridge, stretch about 25 miles northeast from High Point, N.J., to the Northern Gunks, which comprise Sam’s Point Preserve, Minnewaska State Park and Mohonk Preserve. The Shawangunk Ridge, as it is called in New York, is a geologic feature stretching hundreds of miles. In New Jersey, it’s called the Kittatinny Ridge; in Pennsylvania and Maryland, Blue Mountain; and inVirginia, North Mountain. In all five states, the ridge is protected from development — except in the Southern Gunks.

 The announcement of the grants came just 20 days after the Conservation Alliance, a national group of outdoor-industry companies, announced its own grant of $35,000 to the NYNJTC for the Southern Gunks project.
The biggest unprotected areas of the Southern Gunks are in their most southerly 10 miles, between High Point and Otisville. Now, the acquisition of just 13 parcels and/or easements is needed to complete a continuous protected corridor.

The NYNJTC sees its 1,600 members who live in Orange County as an important asset for the grassroots advocacy needed to purchase, and thereby protect, these parcels.

Another grant of local interest was a $16,000 grant to the Hudson Highlands Land Trust, a local land conservation organization based in Garrison, for its Jaycox Park-to-Park Connection Project. Those monies will facilitate a joint effort between the HHLT, New YorkState, and other partners to permanently protect a 50-acre parcel of land and create a long sought-after link between Hudson Highlands State Park Preserve and Clarence Fahnestock Memorial State Park.

Recent research underscores how investments in land conservation and open space boost property values, support local businesses, save taxpayer dollars, and protect public health. A study released in February by the Trust for Public Land found that every dollar of investment fromNew York’s Environmental Protection Fund generates seven dollars in additional economic benefits from tourism, reduced government costs and improved public health. A 2010 report on the economic benefits of open space from the New York State Comptroller recommended the Conservation Partnership Program as a model for public- private collaboration because it leverages substantial resources for local efforts to preserve clean air and water resources, agriculture, and outdoor recreational.

The Hudson Highlands Land Trust is a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the natural resources, rural character, and scenic beauty of the Hudson Highlands. For more information on the HHLT, call 845-424-3358 or visit www.hhlt.org.

Here’s something we all should have taken in college but somehow overlooked: “Trail U 558 – Intro to Trail Maintenance.”

Offered by the wonderful New York-New Jersey Trail Conference, the group that procures and protects some of the best hiking trails in the Northeast U.S., it’s a FREE one-day training session covering the skills needed to maintain hiking trail so they’re easily passable and harmonious with their surroundings. Students will learn assessment of trail conditions, clearing, blazing, proper use of tools, and how to report trail problems.

The description at www.nynjtc.org says no previous experience is necessary, and beginners are welcome. That’s me! Students will spend the morning in a classroom and then head out into woods for hands-on instruction. The Trail Conference advises that students wear boots, and bring work gloves, water, and a bag lunch.

Date: Saturday, May 12, 2012 – 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Place: Port Jervis Public Library, Port Jervis, N.Y.

Maximum Number of Attendees: 25

Level: Introductory

Coordinator: Larry Wheelock; instructors: Jakob Franke and Andy Garrison

To register or to get more information, email Larry Wheelock wheelock@nynjtc.org or call him at 201-512-9348 x16.

You don’t have to be a member of the NYNJTC to take this course (for some of their offerings, you do), but consider joining anyway. Your $30 tax-deductible membership fee goes to help this great nonprofit save open space and map, clear and maintain trails throughout New York and New Jersey. It also gets you discounts on their excellent, waterproof topo maps; hiking books; and cool gear.

Hope to see you in Port Jervis on May 12!

Everything below this paragraph was copied and pasted from the website of one of my favorite places: the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which Tim and i visited on April 12 and 13 of this month. i looooved everything about it, especially our guides Linda and Larry and the “bird walk” they took us on, around their beautiful woods. Tim was SUCH a good sport about it, and more than once wryly noted that he could see with his naked eyes birds that we “birders” then tried — sometimes vainly — to see with our — in some cases rather expensive — binoculars. Anyway, April 27 is Team Sapsucker’s day to go for the world record for bird-species sighted in 24 hours, and they’re in Texas to give it a try. Try to support them with a donation. It’s strictly for the birds!

Big Day is our biggest conservation fundraiser of the year. If you have already made a pledge to support bird conservation, thank you! If not, please click here to make your pledge today or contribute a flat donation if you prefer. Your gift will provide much-needed support to help the birds.

The team has been in Texas all week scouting in their new Texas Triangle: San Antonio to the Hill Country, then east to Galveston instead of Corpus Christi.

After a test run of this new triangle, their hopes are high. The biggest find was a Rufous-capped Warbler in the Hill Country. This is a species typically found from Mexico south into Central America, with fewer than 50 records ever in Texas. Bonus birds like that could be crucial in tipping the Sapsuckers over the 264 species mark for a new North American single-day birding record.

Help spur on the team as they attempt to break the all-time Big Day record for the United States (264 species) and raise $250,000 for bird conservation.

Please make a pledge today.

I was looking at the website of the Xerces Society recently and came upon the following sentences, which I swear I am not making up. I was so enchanted by this info that I immediately sent them a donation. I mean, you’ve got to love an organization that’s devoted to things without backbones (excluding the New York State Legislature), and that can produce prose like this:

“There have been few sitings of the Oregon giant earthworm in recent years. It can reach up to 60 centimeters long and it reportedly has spit that smells of lilies.”