Australia-Burning-NYTIMES

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Activism in the Age of Climate Grief

The stories are everywhere. Wildfires transforming the landscape of Australia and threatening the Amazon rainforest. Warming ocean waters helping create mega-storms that devastate vulnerable communities. Politicians who not only ignore the clear threats (and the supporting science) but seem to glory in ignoring them.

In the face of such a relentless assault of sad, infuriating, and frightening news, many people turn away Or, at least, choose to learn only the broad outlines of an issue, not the details. For many of us (for I plead guilty to doing this), the only way to stay politically and socially active at all is to fight off the feeling of helplessness—even of despair—that all the details on the news can bring.

But what of the young people who are turning toward these stories, wanting to learn more, not less? Who are majoring in environmental studies, marching in science marches, fighting to change their schools’ environmental policies and investments?

As a writing mentor for many years, I’ve met countless such young people—strong, determined, undeterred. For many of us (again: guilty as charged) they provide our hope for the future, the generation that will finally begin to clean up the ecological messes every previous generation has made.

But that is asking so much, requiring them not only to reckon with an ever-mounting problem but also to overcome the emotional and psychological challenges that accompany the effort. How do they do it? Is it even possible to balance activism and health in the era of climate grief?

I recently talked this over with Delia Walz, a 2018 graduate of Croton-Harmon High School who is now a second-year student and Environmental Studies major at Oberlin College in Ohio. After joining efforts to transform CHHS’s policies on paper use, sale of plastic water bottles, and other issues, she chose to take on the new challenges college’s bigger stage provided.

In making that choice, she came head to head with the emotional cost of doing so. Climate grief is real and ever-present among the students she knows, she says. “It identifies an existential sadness people feel,” she says. “We see students leave the Environmental Studies major because they don’t want to be experiencing these feelings every day.”

On a larger scale, studies show that anxiety about the future is rampant among young people today. A 2017 report by the American Psychological Association said that, alongside the immediate psychological impacts of climate-related disruption due to storms and other threats, “gradual, long-term changes in climate can also surface a number of different emotions, including fear, anger, feelings of powerlessness, or exhaustion.”

Delia has learned that it helps not to take on the burdens alone. At Oberlin, she has become part the school’s branch (called a hub) of the nationwide Sunrise Movement, which advocates and demonstrates for initiatives (including the Green New Deal) to battle climate change and other ecological threats.

A big part of the Oberlin hub’s goal, she said, is to break out of the college “bubble” and work closely with Ohio’s Senator Sherrod Brown, other elected officials, and—crucially—workers who may be suspicious of what such efforts will mean for their jobs. “We have to connect with the unions,” Delia says, “and discuss the safe, well-paying jobs that will be available to them with the development of new technologies through green initiatives.”

In addition, on a college-wide and personal level, Delia says, “We have to work to give support to those who most need it.” One way Oberlin students have done this is to successfully advocate for the establishment of a human-resources position at the school’s Sunshine hub. Its purpose is to help students address their emotional needs.

Other, and timeless, ways of surviving include bonding with other students without talking about the issues at hand. “If you always look directly at the sadness you feel,” she says, “you won’t be able to get out of bed in the morning. But you also can’t succumb to a feeling of guilt if you’re not always looking at it directly.”

Simply taking a break, turning one’s brain off for a little while with TV or another distraction, can make all the difference. “To keep yourself from burning out,” Delia says, “sometimes you just need an hour to be mindless.”

(Among her current escapes—and mine—is “The Good Place,” a TV show with the encouraging belief that people are essentially good, and can change their behavior to improve.)

Yet despite all the challenges they face—both without and within—Delia and so many others remain steadfast in their desire to stay on the path they’ve chosen, to bring about essential change. “I can’t imagine not working together with others towards our common goals,” she says. “They’re too important.”

For the rest of us, those are heartening words, providing strength and determination as we confront our own climate grief.

© 2020 by Joseph Wallace

Turkey Vulture

Secret Life of Croton’s “Carrion Crows”

You don’t have to be a birder to notice the huge flocks—sometimes numbering 100 or more—of big, dark birds looming over downtown Croton-on-Hudson this fall and winter. Or to know what they are: vultures (often nicknamed “carrion crows” or “buzzards”), those notorious scavengers of road kill and other carcasses that seem to be increasing in number every year around these parts.

Their growing presence is all a glance will tell you about the local vultures, and for many people, that’s all they need to know. But—as with so much in the natural world—if you take a moment to look closer, you’ll see that the story of these big birds is far more complicated, full of surprising twists and turns.

First of all, Croton doesn’t simply have “vultures”: It has two different kinds, Turkey and Black. They’re actually pretty easy to tell apart. The more common TVs, brown-black in plumage, have long wings that slant upwards, forming a V, as they tilt buoyantly in even a slight breeze. BVs, a more recent arrival in our area, are darker (with silver-white patches at their wingtips), slightly smaller and squatter, and have a heavier flight. They flap much more frequently than their cousins.

And while they both have bare, featherless heads, Turkey Vultures’ are pink and Black Vultures’ grey-black. (Bare heads make for less mess when they’re delving deep in a carcass for succulent morsels—and aren’t you glad you know that now?)

But there are other, more fascinating differences between the species. Turns out they also boast dramatically different behavior, feeding habits, and dominance.

For example: Even though we see the two species soaring and roosting together, they don’t actually get along that well. Since Turkey Vultures are larger on average, a single individual can dominate a single Black at a feeding site. But Black Vultures have a way to counteract that size disadvantage: They team up. They form a pack…and a pack of BVs can almost always drive a lesser number of TVs away.

Secondly, while Turkey Vultures depend almost entirely on carcasses for their food (only rarely killing a sick or young animal), Black Vultures hunt live prey much more frequently. The pack mentality, more akin to wolves or lions than other birds, even allows them to bring down mammals such as skunks, calves, and young pigs.

But perhaps the most striking difference between the two species is that they use two entirely different senses to locate carrion.

Black Vultures, like most day-flying predatory birds, rely on their keen eyesight. When foraging or hunting, they soar (and flap) high in the sky, scanning the ground below.

Turkey Vultures, however, use a far rarer—almost unheard-of—method: They employ their sense of smell. Recent research has shown that the vultures possess an olfactory bulb (an area of the brain that processes odors) far larger than that of Black Vultures. In fact, their olfactory bulbs are larger as a proportion of brain volume than those of nearly 150 other bird species studied.

This and other anatomical differences allow Turkey Vultures to recognize ethyl mercaptan, a chemical produced when a dead mammal has begun to decay. The vultures can detect this chemical sooner after death than any other carrion-eater, making them most often the first to the feast.

The same adaptations mean that foraging Turkey Vultures tend to fly low over the canopy, which gives them a better chance of catching that first whiff of ethyl mercaptan. And the Black Vultures? While they soar higher, scanning the ground with their keen eyes, they’re also keeping a close eye on their cousins flying closer to the ground. When a Turkey Vulture locates the carcass first and descends, down swoop the BVs as well. (And then sometimes attack in a pack to drive away the bird that first located the meal.)

Perched on their rooftops and tree limbs, Croton’s carrion crows seem little more than a group of silent, hulking nuisances. But like almost everything in nature, they actually paint an extraordinary portrait of adaptation, competition, and survival. One that rewards a closer look.

Joe Wallace

Frigatebird-allaboutbirds.org

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Evolution’s Outreach Program

Some years back, I was sitting in my windowless basement writing space in Pleasantville when my phone buzzed. I could see the call was from my wife, and I knew it had to be important: She tried never to disturb me in my writing “dungeon.”

I answered, but before I could say a word she said, “I just saw a frigatebird fly over the elementary school.”

Yes, that counted as important news to this lifelong birder! Also hard to believe. But even as I said, “Are you sure?” I knew how silly the question was. She knows her birds, too, and of all North American species, few are as unmistakable as the Magnificent Frigatebird.

In addition, the appearance in New York of a seabird normally not seen north of Florida was not completely outlandish right then: Just a couple of days earlier, Hurricane Irene had swept through the Northeast, and powerful tropical systems notoriously sweep unexpected birds along with them.

Although I wasn’t lucky enough to glimpse the frigatebird, since then I’ve paid special attention to these one-offs, which happen all the time in our region. (If rarely involving anything so spectacular.) As I write, birders are flocking to a park in Suffolk County to get a look at a Golden-crowned Sparrow, whose normal range isn’t any further east than Nevada. Recently, an Ash-throated Flycatcher (another western species) also visited Long Island.

I’m less interested in checking off these species—the only running bird list I keep is the one for my ABA-area—than in what they tell us about the evolutionary process. Because each time a bird wafts here unexpectedly, what we’re seeing on a micro level is, in fact, an example of one of the engines driving the development of new species. Call it evolution’s outreach program.

Whenever eBird, rare-bird alerts, or other reports list an unusual bird visitor, I’m reminded, of all things, of the Galápagos Islands. Specifically, the birds on this remote archipelago that inspired Charles Darwin to recognize and understand the evolutionary process.

Everyone knows that the Galápagos Islands host birds that—despite originating from a common ancestor—have evolved into different species on various islands and even among habitats on a single island. Most famous of these are the Galapagos finches. (Which, by the way, have recently been moved to the tanager family.)

A diversity of finches!
Source: www.galapagossafaricamp.com

Scientists have not yet agreed on the finches’ likely common ancestor, or even if it came from mainland South America or the Caribbean. One thing they do agree on, however, is how this ancestor reached the Galápagos: accidentally.

Just as the Magnificent Frigatebird was swept to Pleasantville.  (And not just the frigatebird! Check out this post-Hurricane Irene eBird report: ebird.org/news/hurricane_irene_redux/) So were the first finches likely carried by storms. Having arrived in some quantity, they did what living things do when they end up in unfamiliar but friendly territory: They began to breed.

And then evolution did what it does as time passes: The long process of mutation and adaptation began, with the result that the finches not only diverged from their ancestor species, but from each other. All it took was habitat enough, and time.

The same process has been repeated countless times on islands and other isolated areas all over the world (e.g., on opposite banks of the Amazon River, which serves as its own barrier to mixing.) Unexpected arrival, colonization, and speciation represents one crucial way that evolution takes place worldwide.

Admittedly, this is hard for us to comprehend. The problem for us humans, with our brief lives—in geologic terms, at least—is that the development of new species usually takes so long that we rarely get more than a glimpse of it. We have to look at the fossil record—or spectacular examples like the Galápagos—for reminders.

But not me. These days, whenever I see an out-of-place sparrow, flycatcher, or Magnificent Frigatebird, I find myself wondering: “Is this the moment when a new species will begin?”

Joe Wallace

Croton-Point-Landfill_early-spring-EPA

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If You Plant It

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Many years ago, as a child in Midwood, Brooklyn, I decided to set up a sunflower-seed feeder (in reality just a tin-foil tray hanging on our magnolia tree) in our postage-stamp backyard. Every day after school I’d check to see if it had attracted anything beyond the usual sparrows, House Finches, and Grackles.

Joe's childhood backyard bird list
Joe’s childhood backyard bird list.
Photo: Joe Wallace.

I didn’t hold out much hope—after all, ours was just a tiny patch of green in an enormous city—but, amazingly, it worked.Soon less familiar birds began showing up in the feeder and surrounding bushes, including some my Peterson informed me didn’t even eat seeds. One day it might be an American Redstart fluttering amid the magnolia leaves, the next a Brown Thrasher staring at me from the lilac. A Black-throated Blue Warbler, a Wood Thrush, a pair of Baltimore Orioles.

Watching these unexpected visitors, I began to see something about migration that I’d never truly understood before. I knew that the passage of birds each spring was like a great river flowing overhead…a river I couldn’t really see or hear. Yet somehow the birds streaming past could see me, or at least my yard—even my homemade feeder. They’d noticed.

This precious memory came rushing back to me this past weekend, as my wife and I walked over the top of the mostly shorn grassland hill in Croton Point Park. (It’s undergoing an important restoration to eradicate encroaching invasives and replace them with native grasses and other bird-and pollinator- friendly native vegetation.)

This site didn’t always host 100 acres of grassland, of course. Not that long ago it was a toxic landfill, a Superfund site that took years and countless millions of dollars to clean up. Now capped, it has been transformed into the kind of habitat that has long been under intense pressure across the country. (It’s easy to see how grasslands are good candidates for tilled fields, monoculture crops, harsh fertilizers and pesticides. As a result, this kind of native habitat has vanished in many areas and is besieged in most others.)

There’s plenty of green in Westchester…but there aren’t many grasslands, wild meadows, or unmowed fields. Migrating birds that rely on such specialized ecosystems have long since kept on flying as they search for the habitat they need. And yet they were keeping an eye out, ready to notice if anything changed and to take advantage of it.

Eastern Meadowlark.
Photo: Frank Shufelt.

It didn’t take long. Nearly as soon as the dump was capped and grasses were planted on the hill, the grassland birds began to appear…some only rarely seen in Westchester County for many years. On our recent walk there, we spotted at least seven Eastern Meadowlarks, their odd, stuttering flight making them easy to identify even before we raised our binoculars. A group of five Horned Larks foraged across the newly turned earth. A flock of American Pipits pinwheeled past, letting loose with their sweet flight notes.

In spring and summer, the hill echoes with the bubbling song of nesting Bobolinks and the insect-like buzz of Grasshopper Sparrows. And all seasons bring an array of raptors that have noticed the increase in prey species: American Kestrels, Red-shouldered and Cooper’s Hawks, Northern Harriers and others. (Some years have even seen Short-eared Owls, a diurnal hunter that could be seen quartering the hilltop on silent wings.)

The connection between this expansive grassland and my tiny Brooklyn yard made me think about something else: Not every important environmental effort needs to be on a scale as grand as the reclamation of the Croton Point grassland. Even little actions can have an outsize impact, just as my filling a tinfoil tray with seed did at a time and place where few people set up bird feeders.

Learn more about Pollinator Pathways: http://www.pollinatorpathway.com/

Here’s one example: We can replace the non-native plants that fill most of our gardens (and are useless as food sources to most birds and insects) with native species. Even a small patch, winterberry instead of flame (aka burning) bush, butterfly weed in place of tulips, can make a real difference. (More on the growing “Pollinator Pathway” movement, which spearheads such efforts, can be found in this article from Teatown Reservation and many other online sources: https://www.teatown.org/pollinator-pathways/.

Whether on Croton Point or in our own backyards, we can all use the heartening reminder: If you plant it, if you provide that food, safety, welcome, the birds will come. As they pass by in that great river every spring and fall, they’re always keeping an eye out, and they’ll notice.

I’m certain of this, because the beautiful, unexpected visitors to my Brooklyn backyard so many years ago showed me.

Joe Wallace

menhaden

The Bird and The Fish

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This fall, the walks I’ve taken along the river have almost always featured at least one Osprey winging overhead. In nearly every case, the raptor is carrying evidence of a successful hunting plunge: a medium-sized silvery fish, sometimes still wriggling, always pointing forward.

Osprey with catch of Menhaden. Photo: National Wildlife Federation

Nearly every time at this season, the Osprey’s next meal belongs to one species: Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus), a member of the herring family. (It’s more commonly called “bunker” in the Northeast.) Menhaden once lived in such abundance in Atlantic waters and were such a central part of commercial fisheries that they were dubbed “the most important fish in the ocean.”

How could this be, given that very few people actually eat menhaden?  Historically, it has been important as a crop fertilizer (legend has it that this was the fish that Squanto told the Pilgrims to bury with their seeds), animal feed, and (more recently) for its oil, which is put into cosmetics and Omega-3 supplements.

Like that of so many other species, menhaden populations crashed in the mid-twentieth century, a victim of massive overfishing exacerbated by pollution. But now, thanks to more stringent catch limits and decades spent cleaning up coastal waters, the fish is again a noticeable presence across the Northeast…including the Hudson River.

Not every successful hunt ends happily. My dog was the first to spot this menhaden–almost certainly dropped by one of the Ospreys I often see winging overhead–that recently showed up on our Croton street, half a mile from the river. Photo: Joe Wallace

(Of course, threats to the rebounding population still exist, including a still-rapacious commercial menhaden fishery utilizing immensely destructive purse-seining methods. In 2019, New York fought back against this threat by forbidding commercial menhaden fishing within the state’s waters.)

Humans aren’t the only ones who’ve noticed that menhaden populations have begun to recover. The number of whales (nearly all humpbacks) spotted in the waters off New York City by the nonprofit Gotham Whale has increased from a mere four in 2010 to a staggering 272 in 2018. One primary reason: the reappearance of the menhaden.

Nor are the whales alone. There’s another species that relies on the menhaden as a food source, especially when the fish mass in the fall prior to migrating south: the Osprey, whose own history over the past 75 years has closely mirrored the fish’s.

As is well known, the Osprey population also crashed in the mid-to-late twentieth century. This was largely due to the uncontrolled use of DDT and other pesticides that thinned the birds’ eggshells and caused nesting failures, but it was exacerbated by declining populations of food fish. As many as 90% of the Northeastern Osprey population vanished during this time.

As much as any species apart from the Bald Eagle, the Osprey served as a vivid symbol of what was being lost back then, and helped lead to the banning of DDT and similar pesticides in the U.S. At the same time, local communities erected nesting platforms in saltmarshes, lakesides, and other likely spots, and the Osprey population started a steady recovery. Today, experts believe that the North American population may exceed that of historical times.

But all the nesting platforms and normal eggshells on earth won’t be enough to maintain Osprey populations without other important elements also falling into place. Primary among these are a ready and healthy food supply—and that’s where the rebounding menhaden populations come in.

To me, this story provides a vivid example of an undeniable reality: All of its elements—the bird, the fish, and the water and air and land they inhabit—are part of one precious, threatened whole.

As, of course, are we.

Joe Wallace

Brinton Brook sign

Brinton Brook Gets Ready

The ringing call of a Pileated Woodpecker. The late-season grunt of a Gray Tree Frog. The scuttle and squeak of the ever-present chipmunks. The underlying hum of countless bees amidst a field of wildflowers.

The sounds of SMRA’s Brinton Brook Sanctuary preparing for fall.

This preserve may not be Westchester’s most renowned, but in its beauty and diversity—forest, stream, pond, and meadow all packed into156 acres—it’s one of my favorites. Two visits, one in May and one this week, helped me discover why.

In the spring, Brinton Brook is a cacophony. The pond (shading into a marsh on its edges) is home to a plethora of green and bullfrogs, every male of both species seeming to compete at full lung capacity for available mates. Meanwhile, the woods surrounding the pond resound with the calls of tree frogs.

Green Frog. Photo: Joseph Wallace

Given the relentless assault on the world’s amphibian populations by habitat loss, climate, overuse of pesticides, the rapidly spreading fungal disease chytridiomycosis, and other factors, to find a protected pond and woods that host a robust frog population is especially heartening.

Adding to the spring chorus are the birds passing through or choosing to nest in the preserve: Wood Ducks with their very unducklike calls, the nasal notes of Scarlet Tanagers and more liquid songs of Baltimore Orioles, and many others.

Even on a summery day, the early fall is quieter, more subtle in its sounds: The occasional call of a frog almost seems out of place and the birdsong is reduced largely to the rattle of a Red-bellied Woodpecker and the always thrilling sound of a Pileated. You have to pause and listen carefully to notice the insect hum.

New England Aster and Goldenrod in Brinton Brook meadow. Photo: Joseph Wallace

The hustle and bustle is now mostly visual: The chipmunks race back and forth, their cheek pouches bulging with nuts for the winter, the woodpeckers are busy on dead snags, and the meadow is alive both with goldenrod and asters and an abundance of insects. (Itself a heartening sight.)

These include not only bees, wasps, and butterflies (monarchs stocking up for migration and many smaller species), but more subtle sights as well. These include a species whose existence I first learned of during my recent visit: the green-and-brownish/orange Short-winged Meadow Katydid, hopping amid the long grass stems everywhere along the trail.

I’m already looking forward to my first winter visit to Brinton Brook. I’m sure it will be quieter still. But I also know that there will always be new things to see and hear…as long as I take the time to slow down, look, and listen.

Raven

Corvids Rule!

I’m just back from a trip to Colorado and Utah. It was fascinating to watch familiar-but-not-quite birds that have adapted to the mountains, grasslands, and canyons there: Mountain Chickadees at treeline,  Juniper Titmouse in the forests below, Rock Wrens on rocky slopes.

Corvid Behavior poster: Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Learn more about crows at their online webinar:
https://academy.allaboutbirds.org/product/anything-but-common-the-hidden-life-of-the-american-crow/

But no matter where we traveled, one thing became obvious: corvids (members of the nearly worldwide family Corvidae, including crows, ravens, magpies and their relatives) rule. Depending on the elevation and moisture, three separate jays—Woodhouse’s Scrub, Steller’s, and Pinyon—are colorful presences. American Crows and Black-billed Magpies find homes in downtown Denver. And whether soaring over city buildings or mountaintops, Common Ravens are the dominant species virtually everywhere.

Watching so many corvids made me realize something: I don’t pay enough attention to our own Common Ravens, American and Fish Crows, and Blue Jays. They are just as prominent as their western relatives, and just as fascinating in their interactions and behaviors. But what may be most impressive of all is their ability to adapt to humanity’s heavy hand in our densely populated landscape.

How adaptable are our local corvids? Despite constant change and development in the Northeast, the depredations of West Nile virus, and the ongoing assault of climate change, both American Crows and Blue Jays remain among the most familiar figures in our gardens and preserves. Even people who profess little interest in nature know these birds.

Comparison of Common Raven and American Crow.
Learn how to tell them apart at this BirdNote article with sound links.

And Fish Crows and Common Ravens? They’re getting more familiar every year: Once rare in our area, both the crow and (more recently) the raven have spread to our region in the past few decades, and are now regular nesting species in Westchester. It’s a pleasure to hear, alongside the common crow’s familiar caw caw caw, the fish crow’s nasal cuh-cuh and raven’s deeper variations and expressive squawks and grunts.

Corvids may rarely be anyone’s favorite group of birds; they certainly haven’t been mine. But I think it’s worth celebrating these smart, canny, and adaptable survivors, birds that serve as important seed dispersers, carrion eaters, and symbols of humans’ ability—and need—to coexist with the natural world.

So the next time I’m scanning the winter sky for eagles or springtime foliage for warblers, I’m going to try to do just that. Joe Wallace

climage-change-tree

Get Climate Smart This Fall

“We’re not waiting for Washington” is the tagline of the film Paris to Pittsburgh which looks at the growing responses of cities and states to climate change across the United States. Regardless of the current political troubles in Washington, we’re not waiting either at Saw Mill River Audubon.

This fall, we are offering two different important climate change events, in partnership with six other area Audubon chapters, the Federated Conservationists of Westchester County and other partners. Our thanks especially to SMRA Vice President Tom Ruth for coordinating our 2019 climate change outreach and to Audubon New York for grant support.

click image above for more information and reservations

Climate change can seem too complex and overwhelming, leaving us feeling powerless and discouraged. But we’re not powerless and we’re not discouraged.

Here are two antidotes we are offering this fall. First is a free screening of Paris to Pittsburgh, Wednesday, September 25, 6:30 pm for a reception and 7:00 pm film start, held at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center. Come get encouraged and inspired by how people like us are taking action to combat climate change. We thank the Town of New Castle for providing this wonderful venue and Films on Purpose for co-sponsoring and arranging a brief panel discussion after the film about what’s being done locally.

click image above for more information and reservations

Second is a “Climate Change Boot Camp,” the morning of Saturday, October 26 at the Westchester County Center. Get up to speed about what climate change effects to expect here in the lower Hudson Valley and hear more about state, county, and local actions to prepare for climate change and help mitigate it. Event support from Audubon New York. Venue provided with assistance from the Westchester County Executive’s Office for Energy Conservation and Sustainability.

Click the event images above for more details and registration for either event. Come join us for these climate change events this fall to get climate smart and find out how you can take action with us to make a difference.
Valerie Lyle, President
Saw Mill River Audubon

See also Audubon New York’s response below
on recent New York State climate change legislation:
ny.audubon.org/news/new-york-passes-strongest-climate-act-nation

Red-banded Hairstreak at Pruyn Gardens 8-31-19 Peter Post

It’s Butterfly Season!

From the first warming days of late winter—when Mourning Cloaks give promise of spring’s arrival—to the spectacle of migrating Monarchs in the fall, butterflies are with us for much of the year. But rarely are they more active and apparent are now, as each species prepares in its own way for oncoming winter.

Monarch Butterfly. Photo: Joe Wallace.

Like nearly everyone, I’ve long been aware of the Monarch’s astounding—and threatened—migration. But how do other butterflies in northern climes, ones that don’t undertake long migrations, manage to survive the frigid months?  It turns out that when it comes to survival in this clan, almost anything goes.

Survival is possible because butterflies have evolved to produce a natural kind of antifreeze (glycerol and other molecules similar to those used in car antifreeze) in the fall. These prevent the formation of ice crystals within their bodies. As a result, when they—like other hibernating creatures—reduce their metabolism and respiration during hibernation, these cold-blooded creatures can endure even crushingly low temperatures.

Black Swallowtail caterpillar.
Photo: Joe Wallace

What form they take to survive is where the differences occur. Some species—including the Black Swallowtails whose caterpillars have been fattening themselves on garden parsley and fennel—spend the winter as well-camouflaged chrysalises attached branches or in leaf litter. Others, including some Copper Butterfly species, overwinter as eggs attached to branches or trunks, while still others (such as Checkerspots) actually maintain their caterpillar form until spring arrives, often overwintering on the ground near where their host plants will sprout fresh leaves in the spring.

Each of these strategies shows why we should be mindful not only of our surroundings during growing season, but all year long. Leaving a pile of leaf litter alone, pruning and chopping our trees and bushes carefully, inspecting dead branches before we clean up our gardens, can all help insure the survival of butterfly species to entrance us the following year.

Oh, and Mourning Cloak? This species actually spends the winter as an adult, tucked away in rock crevices, woodpiles, and other protected spots. That’s why the butterfly appears so quickly when the winter weather begins to warm, a welcome harbinger indeed. — Joe Wallace

Links to Explore More Suggested by Saw Mill River Audubon
Visit Saw Mill River Audubon Native Plant & Butterfly Demo Gardens
Learn More about Healthy Yards
Get Resources from the Westchester Native Plant Center

Sunset-and-heron-8-20

Fall is in the Air

(Yes! It’s August!)

As a longtime observer of nature—especially but not only birds—I’ve been spending a lot of time watching the ebb and flow in Croton on Hudson, especially down in Croton Landing. The Landing is a pretty remarkable mix of created habitats (freshwater ponds, riverside beaches, a mini cattail marsh, fields with tall trees, and of course the river). This month (both on the Landing and in the town) has seen so many signs of in-progress and impending autumn, things I never really noticed before I started walking along the river so often.


  • Immature Red-tailed Hawk, Bonnie Coe

A few examples: After a midsummer silence, several bird species have been singing again (if sometimes weakly and sporadically) at the Landing, including Warbling Vireo, Yellow Warbler, and Baltimore Oriole. Red-tailed Hawks have been endlessly vocal—are these young newly on their own and complaining that they’re not being fed? The Killdeer that nest around the Croton train tracks have been flighty and vocal as well. Among mammals, the Landing’s woodchucks are getting themselves fat. 

In town, there’s a large population of vultures that spends all winter here. After a summer where I saw mostly Turkey Vultures, the flocks seem larger–real kettles–and include many Black Vultures as well. Also, twice in the past two weeks, my neighborhood has been inundated with grackles, gleaning every bit of food they can find before moving on. (We’re trying to protect the black-swallowtail caterpillars, themselves feasting on the parsley and dill in our pollinator garden as they race the clock to grow big enough to pupate, from the keen-eyed grackles.)

It’s fascinating—and heartening—to see how nature inherently understands the way the seasons meld into each other: How even in the midst of what still feels like midsummer to us humans, it’s preparing for what happens next.  — Joe Wallace

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