Welcome PWA Crew Leaders!
Please join us in welcoming Heather Zimba and Adolf Zollinger as this year’s Project Wild America Youth Ambassador crew leaders! Heather and Adolf will be leading our high school ambassadors throughout the summer as our natural history studies and educational outreach continues within the city of Jamestown. They are both excellent students involved in Jamestown Community College’s environmental science program and each have worked with the Roger Tory Peterson Institute in the past. Adolf worked as a crew member during last year’s iteration of Project Wild America and...
Read MoreTeaching the Teachers
Throughout the past few years of working for RTPI, I’ve heard the phrase “teaching the teachers” a number of times. From my understanding, at one time this meant equipping school teachers with the proper materials and knowledge to take their classes out into nature and teach their students place-based education. RTPI education staff traveled extensively to carry out teacher workshops and engage students in learning about the natural world. As the years have gone on, the approach to carrying out that phrase has shifted, but the focus has remained: passing our knowledge and...
Read MoreConnecting with Our Forests
While old man winter seemed to have taken a break this past season, we certainly did not as there was much work to be done! As you likely saw, we spent much of this past winter season getting into the field to survey for Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (Adelges tsugae), an invasive insect threatening our local hemlock trees (Tsuga canandensis) and forests. Throughout the course of our field work and educational outreach programs, we not only had the opportunity to spread the word about this pest in attempts to slow the spread of it into our area, but also had the opportunity to learn a lot more about...
Read MoreProject Wild America Youth Ambassadors 2016
Hi all! It’s been a while since I last wrote…there has been so much going on! First, let me catch you up a bit on what is coming up for this summer. I’m admittedly sharing things a bit out of order, as I have lots to tell you about our how well our hemlock woolly adelgid surveys went, the wrap up of our snowmobile cell phone tour, another recent publication, winter raptor surveys and a great winter season with some fantastic interns. I’ll be writing about all of these things shortly, so please stay tuned! Spring is upon us now, and we are looking ahead and setting goals for our summer...
Read MoreWinter Raptor Internship
There are a number of bird species that call Chautauqua County their home. In particular, there are two species, Northern Harriers (Circus cyaneus) listed as ‘threatened’ and Short-eared Owls (Asio flammeus), listed as ‘endangered’ in New York. The Roger Tory Peterson Institute is now in its third year of helping the DEC conduct surveys for these birds. The primary focus of these surveys is to determine where Northern Harriers and Short-eared Owls are spending their time to roost and feed during the winter months. The Northern Harrier is rather distinctive from a long distance with a slim,...
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