Where are the Whip-poor-wills? 2018 Field Season Update
For more than a decade, VCE has led a project that takes place while most folks are fast asleep. Learn about our 2018 Whip-poor-will Project survey results, and find out how you can get involved!
Vernal Pools Through the Year
Picture a vernal pool in your mind’s eye and you’re instantly swept away to springtime. But here at VCE, our vernal pool research spans all seasons. Alex Wells, our VPMon Coordinator, provides this latest update on off-season vernal pool monitoring activities.
Loon Chicks on Caspian Lake: Flying, Feeding, and Finding A Friend
As the coordinator of the Vermont Loon Conservation Project, VCE’s Eric Hanson receives a good number and variety of stories from volunteer loon watchers. This month he shares VLCP volunteer Nina Sharp’s observations of loon chicks on Caspian Lake. It’s a good read!
Field Update: Loon Wins and Losses
Every year, some of our returning loons get themselves into “hot water,” so to speak. Eric Hanson, VCE’s loon biologist, gives us his mid-season good news/bad news update here.
Mission Monarch Nearly Nixed by Missing Milkweed
What had been promised as an easy venture turned into something of a quest.
2018 Peregrine Falcon Nesting Season Complete
The Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department recently announced that Peregrine Falcon nesting season has ended, so hikers and rock climbers can return to Vermont cliffs starting August 1, 2018.
Give ‘Em Space: Observe Nesting Loons from a Distance
The Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department is asking boaters and anglers to enjoy loons from a safe distance this summer.
Grassland Ambassadors: Laughing Brook Farm
The Bobolink’s bubbly song has filled the summer fields of Julia and Greg Smist’s 100-acre farm in Westminster, VT for at least 30 years. A decade or so after buying the farm, Julia noticed fewer Bobolinks in the fields. Her observations echo a grim region-wide statistic: Bobolinks have declined by 75% in the region over the past 50 years.
VCE Awarded 2018 TechGrant
VCE’s scientists continually seek to incorporate emerging technologies to enhance their data gathering and analysis capabilities, and thanks to a generous 2018 TechGrant award from the TechFoundation, VCE’s Vernal Pool Monitoring Project will benefit from such a technological boost.
Birdathon 2014: By foot and float yields over 100 species
The VCE team opted for our customary low-carbon Birdathon this spring, but swapped hiking boots and mountain bikes for water shoes and kayaks/canoes. This all but quashed the possibility of…
April Photo-observation of the Month Winner
The iNaturalist Vermont April photo-observation of the month by popular vote was The Scribbler. The caterpillars of this tiny geometrid moth feed on alders, birches, maples, and willows. The adults…
Grassland Birders Sought to be ‘out standing in the field’ This Summer
Birders across New England are invited to greet the sunrise and enjoy the tumbling song of the bobolink on clear mornings this Spring and Summer in open fields, conducting bird…
