Crime stories make national headlines every day, but violations of wildlife law usually escape the spotlight. But that doesn’t mean federal conservation laws are ignored.
Recent stories
Here are just a few recent stories featured on the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Web site.
In Florida, two Georgia-based construction firms were fined $70,000 and put […]
Mounds of fresh top soil and ridges from tunnels just under the sod mean one thing — moles.
Have to offer
But before you succumb to the pest industry’s annual campaign against moles and rush to the local home improvement center for traps and poison, consider what moles have to offer.
The presence of moles in […]
Large predators are difficult to study because they’re relatively uncommon and they roam widely, so I was thrilled when I heard two good news stories about big predators.
Lost and found
Back in November 2006, Dr. Todd Katzner, Director of Conservation and Field Research at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh, and biologists from the Pennsylvania […]
It may seem a bit early to be listening for frogs, but wood frogs rush the season. They emerge from beneath forest leaf litter in late winter, and as soon as the ice melts, they sing.
A wood frog’s voice is hardly frog-like. One field guide describes a wood frog chorus as sounding, “like a […]
If your daily commute takes you along a stream that meanders through a wet meadow, watch for early signs of life as spring approaches.
Skunk cabbage
Even as snow or ice still covers the ground, skunk cabbage begins to grow.
I first noticed skunk cabbage while riding the school bus many years ago.
Every day we […]
From late winter through early spring, whenever I’m in the woods, I keep my eyes peeled for shed antlers. Sheds, the antlers white-tailed deer bucks lose each year, are a terrific addition to my collection of natural artifacts.
The first few I found were still attached to skulls, antlers of unlucky road kills, so it […]
The highlights of this year’s Great Backyard Bird Count Feb. 13-16 are likely to include reports of northern species moving south in huge numbers. White-winged crossbills, pine siskins, common redpolls, and snow buntings only occasionally visit our latitude, but 2009 has seen an impressive southbound invasion by these species.
The Great Backyard Bird Count is […]
A few years ago on a cold winter night, Daisy, my yellow Lab, and I took a walk in the woods after a snow storm.
Daisy enjoyed plowing through the ankle-deep snow with her nose. At one point she wallowed in the snow the way she rolls in mud holes in the spring.
As we returned toward […]
To the uninitiated, the yellow-bellied sapsucker sounds like a mythical creature.
“Where is it in the field guide?” they ask. “Right next to the “bleary-eyed bedthrasher?”
“No,” I answer. “It’s a woodpecker.”
Four
There are actually four species of sapsuckers in North America, but only the yellow-belly is found here in the […]
If you’ve seen or heard unfamiliar birds recently, it’s probably not your imagination.
The mystery bird is about the size of a white-throated sparrow and is found primarily in groves of evergreens — spruce, hemlock and pine trees.
Males are red with dark wings; females are drab olive-gray. Both sexes have two bold white bars […]
