Tag: Wildlife
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Coyote or Coywolf?
There’s something stunning if slightly startling about spotting (or hearing the howl of) our ubiquitous Adirondack canid. Agile and attentive, swift and stealthy, this familiar predator is a familiar and important part of our ecosystem. And yet much mystery and misunderstanding collects around this handsome neighbor, not the least of which is disagreement over whether…
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Groundhog Day: Punxsutawney Phil Foresees More Winter
Did Punxsutawney Phil see his shadow? Is spring around the corner? Are we headed into six more weeks of winter? In this high tech era of satellites forecasting weather from beyond the beyond, intricate algorithms gobbling gargantuan data sets, and media channels dedicated to analyzing and communicating meteorological mysteries in real time, we still get…
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Midpoint Milestone: 6 Months Down, 6 Months to Go
Yesterday was a meaningful midpoint milestone in my quest to post a Rosslyn update every day without fail for an entire year. Six months, 26+ weeks, 184 days. One new installment every 24-hours without fail. Rhapsodizing Rosslyn, celebrating our team’s accomplishments, soapboxing historic rehab and adaptive reuse, showcasing seasonality snapshots and historic Essex memorabilia, weaving in some hyperlocal haiku and…
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Busy Bobcat Byway
Kudos to John Davis (@wildwaystrekker), and Tony Foster (@anthonyfoster335) for mapping out and building Rosslyn’s newest nature trail. It’s become a bustling bobcat byway, well trafficked night and day by many wildlife including a population of wild felines. Hurrah! Just over one month ago I acknowledged the scarcity of native wildcat images on our wildlife cameras. It’s…
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Gray Fox or Eastern Coyote?
John Davis, our good friend and Rosslyn’s conscientious wildlife steward, contacted me this weekend with an excited update. Good photos on your cell cam last few days, including a Gray Fox, I think, January 11. We rarely see those. I’d just been reviewing recent images from the camera he referenced, a Reconyx, cellular-enabled camera that…
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Northern Cardinal
It’s fair to call it midwinter, I think, and yet snow has been intermittent and sparse. But it’s plenty cold, so we’ll trust the calendar. The Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) photographed by one of our wildlife cameras tells a different story. It could be autumn. Or spring. The male Northern Cardinal is perhaps responsible for…
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A Barnophile of Bygone Barns
Yesterday I meditated a minute on bygone barns. Ancient farm buildings. Tempered by time, tempted by gravity, and sowbacked beneath the burdens of generations, these rugged utility structures retain (and sometimes gain) a minimalist elegance long after design and construction and use fade into history. My meditation was meandering and inconclusive. In part this was…
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Bobcat Blurring
I spy a bobcat blurring brookside, loping contentedly across a path padded with pine needles. Do you see what I see? S/he’s pretty well camouflaged in the range of rusty hues filling the majority of this image. But look for the lean, well muscled legs, the bobbed tail, and the pointy ears with a spray…
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Winter Solstice: Longer Days Ahead
Welcome to day one of the Adirondack Coast‘s coldest season. Today is the winter solstice, the first official day of winter, and — more importantly for the likes of my mother and others who favor longer days and shorter nights — the threshold between the briefest day and the most prolonged night and imperceptibly-but-steadily lengthening…
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Thanksgiving Thanks
Hope you were able to celebrate and take time for gratitude yesterday. And today. As with most holidays, I find myself thinking that we should dedicate longer than a day to giving thanks. Maybe a week? Even that seems too brief a time to honor everyone (wild neighbors included) who adds value and happiness, health…
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Lone Oak
I remember, as a boy, seeing a mature bald eagle sitting in this oak tree. It must’ve been 1984 or 1985. My mother was driving us from Rock Harbor to Plattsburgh, where we went to school. It was less common to see bald eagles back then. They were present in the Champlain Valley, but less…