Sunflower Sky
Every day, especially after all that water this week, these sunflowers are creeping closer to the sky. The cold front brought not only rain but more birds and butterflies on the wing south. Keep watching for new faces every day!
Read MoreSunflowers Emerging
It’s happening! Sunflowers are blooming and their wonderful shades are emerging across our summer landscape. These will serve as tremendous food sources for birds on the way south. While our aerial insectivores are flying to their winter quarters right now, the seed eaters will be moving in the coming weeks and months. For now the flowers are all for the insects…
Read MoreBlack-eyed Susan
It is a beautiful time of the year with July’s grasses and flowers filling every field with treasures like Rudbeckia hirta, or Black-eyed Susan, delighting our insects and sustaining our world. As we embark into August make sure you schedule time to be outdoors this weekend!
Read MoreSunflower Plot
The first “fall” migrant birds are already dispersing or moving about! Young swallows are leaving their nesting areas, shorebirds are beginning to come south, and flycatchers that may have had failed nests are already on the way to the wintering grounds. Later this autumn this sunflower plot will be a tremendously attractive spot to many passerine migrants looking for a feeding or resting area. Let’s keep up a good balance of rain and sunshine, please! For the birds.
Read MoreButtercups and Bobolinks
Fields painted yellow, birds singing and the sun shining, what else could we ask for? Throughout Chautauqua County the fields are becoming seas of gold as the buttercups bloom. These common flowers don’t just make a large grassy field pretty, but also provide habitat and cover for a number of breeding grassland birds. For Bobolinks in particular, these fields provide a great deal of food, abundant nesting materials and a safe haven to raise their young. As we have been conducting vegetation surveys at the Chautauqua County-Jamestown Airport, we have been surrounded by these incredible...
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