Volunteers Beautify RTPI
In late July, a large group of volunteers from the Cummins Inc., Jamestown Engine Plant came to RTPI to make improvements to our building and grounds. This enthusiastic and hardworking group tended our flowerbeds, cleaned up our porch and patio, trimmed back the vegetation along our hiking trails, and weeded our walkways and parking areas. We’d like to express our gratitude for the efforts of this dedicated crew – they certainly left the place looking lovely just in time for our big summer events!
Read MoreThe HWA Survey Season Begins!
Don’t forget to join us tomorrow for our first Hemlock Woolly Adelgid survey of the season! We will be meeting at Dobbin’s Woods, a Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy property, at 9:30AM. With our recent snows and predicted cold temperatures, please be sure to dress warmly and bring some snowshoes or skis to get around as the snow pack will be deep. We will have some extra snowshoes available if needed. For directions to the site, please visit: http://chautauquawatershed.org/index.php/preserves/our-preserves
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 MoreSo Far So Good
So far we have monitored five sites of interest within Chautauqua and Cattaraugus Counties in search of new infestations of Hemlock Woolly Adelgid. For the third year in a row, all of our sites still appear to be HWA free, and are full of healthy trees that support beautiful ecosystems. This past week in particular, we monitored South Valley State Forest and learned from a local volunteer that the streams running through it are excellent trout streams. Thanks to the shade the hemlocks provide, these streams stay cool and therefore highly oxygenated for trout and other species within the...
Read More2015 Waterbird Results
The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s Wildlife Division (CT DEEP) has now released the official nesting results for the state-threatened Least Tern and the federally-threatened Piping Plover from the 2015 monitoring season, and the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds (AAfCW) – Audubon Connecticut and the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History – has completed our American Oystercatcher report. The first bit of fantastic news is that we hosted a new all-time high number of Piping Plover pairs in the state with 62 attempting to breed...
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