Sign Removal
Spring has seemingly sprung, and that means we are wrapping up our winter projects and beginning to plan for the upcoming summer field season. With the conclusion of winter, our “Nature at Your Fingertips” winter trails cell phone tour signs are coming down off the trail and will be stored away until fall. We’ll be posting more updates soon on how this year’s tour went and what cell phones tours will be going up elsewhere in our area.
Read MoreWe Didn’t Find Anything…And That’s a Good Thing!
After two months of intensive winter survey work, we found nothing. However, that’s precisely the result we wanted. As you’ve probably seen or heard, this past winter we surveyed several sites throughout the area looking exclusively for Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (HWA), an invasive insect that puts all Eastern Hemlock trees (Tsuga canadensis), the habitats they make up and the wildlife they support at risk. This particular pest is minute, but can bring a tree to its death within a matter of 3-5 years if left unchecked and untreated. In response to this, several organizations, state...
Read MoreVernal Pools Poking Through
Last weekend as we were out surveying for HWA in Dobbin’s Woods, a beautiful Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy property, we came across several little pools beginning to form in the depressions of the landscape as the snow increasingly melts back. While these pools aren’t too attractive for us to throw our beach chair next to, they are extremely important to a number of amphibian species. In the upcoming weeks these small pools will serve as little nurseries for salamander and frog offspring to safely develop from egg-y masses to free swimming larvae to land conquering tetrapods....
Read MoreHappy Snowy 1st Day of Spring!
Happy 1st day of spring all! Although the calendar says it’s officially spring, our weather seems to say otherwise. Jamestown, as well as much of the Northeast, will welcome spring in with another snowy system passing through. As winter’s grip begins to slowly loosen, we will be wrapping up our winter projects and the preparation for the upcoming spring and summer field work will begin. It’s going to be an exciting year at RTPI and we can’t wait to report more on what we are up to! So stay tuned and keep thinking warm thoughts!
Read MoreAnother HWA Survey
Staff from the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History, Jamestown Community College and Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy will be surveying high priority CWC properties for Hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae), or HWA. This survey will be open for the public to join. We will be meeting on on Saturday, March 21st at the Dobbins Woods Preserve in Ashville at 9:00 AM. Visit http://www.chautauquawatershed.org/ for directions.
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