Water is Life
Chautauqua County is at the beginning of several different watersheds – water from north county streams flows into Lake Erie, drops over Niagara Falls, and ultimately drains into the Atlantic Ocean. Streams in the southern half of the county drain into the Allegany, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, respectively, and eventually water from these streams reaches the Gulf of Mexico. Our springs and wells are at the source of several large bodies of water and our streams contain some of the cleanest water in these watersheds. As a result, the variety of fish and other aquatic creatures in our area is...
Read MoreWater Chestnut Infestation
Last week while I was traveling to Connecticut and Rhode Island (I’ll be posting about this soon!), I had the opportunity to get a good look at the Hudson River in eastern New York and see first hand the water chestnut infestation that has taken over much of the waterway. When most people hear of water chestnut, they often think of the slices of white vegetables in your stir fry mix or chicken noodle soup. While that is indeed water chestnut, its not the kind that we are necessarily concerned about. Water chestnut (Trapa natans) is an aquatic plant native to western Europe, Africa and...
Read MoreCommon Whitetail
Here’s the Common Whitetail (Plathemis lydia), certainly one of the more common dragonflies found in ponds, lakes, and waterways at this time of the year. More and more species are being seen flying everyday in the Northeast and Sean will be trying to show you as many as he can in beautiful displays like this one. Photographed by RTPI Affiliate Sean Graesser for the Meet Your Neighbours global biodiversity project in Connecticut for the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History.
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