Project Wild America Wrap Up
It’s 7am and about 55° on the morning of our last turtle trapping day with our Project Wild America Youth Ambassadors. I roll up to the Riverwalk to find all our students ready to give things a final go. All of us are beat from a long couple weeks of intensive trapping efforts and exploration of various sites along the Chadakoin River. However, we each feel accomplished with how many different species we have found and the impact we have made on the local community through the sharing of our findings and experiences. There is a dwindling optimism as we deploy our 35 foot seine net,...
Read MoreSuzuki’s Promalactis (Promalactis suzukiella)
Happy National Moth Week! We will be showing you many cool species over the next week so we can all appreciate these incredible insects even more. I have a bunch of individuals that I still have to key out from mothing during the past couple of months, and I have tried to do some field work at least every week or two with them. This was one of my first finds last night, and I swear that I knew immediately when looking at it that it would be a non-native species. It seemed divergent to me in some way. Even though many North American moths are staggeringly beautiful, with vibrant shades, odd...
Read MoreEuchlaena muzaria
This is Euchlaena muzaria, the Muzaria Euchlaena moth, a relatively large and active species – at least in my limited experience! This was the best photo I could get of the jumpy individual as it continually kept flying off the building and away from the lights and towards me. It literally hit me several times in the continual cycle of land, approach, possibly take one photo, and fly (into me). Going off of the photo alone it would seem to be shy but…not so much! Scott Kruitbosch Conservation & Outreach Coordinator
Read MoreProject Wild America Youth Ambassadors
Tomorrow we officially begin our summer stewards program: Project Wild America Youth Ambassadors! This summer our crew comprised of two college student leaders and six area high school students will be exploring the wild places along the Chadakoin River that flows right through downtown Jamestown. They will be studying the many species that call the river corridor home, and I’m certain we will find some incredible species as well as learn more about the species we know occupy specific niches created within this urban environment. Our students will also be connecting to the local...
Read MoreTowering Osprey
Can you identify this photo’s distant subject? That Osprey and its mate have built a nest in what looks like an optical illusion or mind maze, but in reality is a massive radio tower. It is a wonderful thing that the species’ comeback has been so successful in the last several decades that they are now relegated to using any bare structure they can find. I certainly would worry about it up there during a thunderstorm, for a few reasons, but having an abundant breeding population is one of those good problems. Even if these individual birds are not successful this season you can...
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