Field Guide to April 2024
As grays and browns permeate the muddy landscape of late spring, summer colors lie just beneath the surface, almost ready to bloom. Strolling through your neighborhood or favorite woodland in April, you may begin to notice flashy dapples of the season’s first wildflowers. The trees around you will start to reverberate with birdsong while the ponds echo with choruses of Wood Frogs and Spring Peepers. If you’re lucky, you may even catch the buzz of an early-season bee as it forages. Here’s our guide to some of the new life bursting forth this month.
VCE is Abuzz with High-impact Bee Work
For over a decade, VCE has been positively buzzing with activity, surveying far and wide for bee species across the state. Our efforts kicked off with the Bumblebee Atlas in 2012 and reached a crescendo in 2022 with the State of Vermont’s Wild Bees report. Little did we know that this would start a multi-state ripple of pollinator work.
VAL Director Provides Testimony on Proposed Neonicotinoid Ban
On February 9, 2024, VCE Conservation Biologist and Vermont Atlas of Life Director Kent McFarland provided testimony to the Vermont State Agriculture, Food Resiliency & Forestry Committee on H.706, a bill requiring restrictions on neonicotinoids. What follows is the text from the written testimony.
Field Guide to March 2024
March is a month of battles between warm and cold, between winter’s refusal to leave and spring’s insistence on arriving. So, here are some signs of spring to look out for this month.
VPAtlas Places Statewide Vernal Pool Data at Your Fingertips
Conserving sensitive, vitally important ecosystems and natural communities, like vernal pools, is essential to addressing biodiversity loss. However, knowing vernal pools’ locations is a critical first step. The Vernal Pool Atlas (VPAtlas), a joint effort of the Vermont Center for Ecostudies and the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department, is designed to do just that.
VCE Internship Supports the Future of Ecology
As an organization that strives to “unite people and science for conservation,” we recognize that to become stronger and more resilient, we must create a culture that embraces diversity and fosters inclusivity. With that goal in mind, VCE launched our Future Ecologists internship in 2022.
Introducing VCE’s ALL IN for Biodiversity Campaign
When the VCE team developed a comprehensive organizational strategy in 2018, we charted an ambitious course, knowing that its success would require increasing our capacity. As we aspire to greater conservation impact, we’re going ALL IN for Biodiversity.
Field Guide to February 2024
This month, wildlife and the rest of us here in New England will cross a significant threshold: 10 hours of daylight. You can sense it when you head out in the morning. Even though we’ve got lots more winter, at least the sound of spring is in the air. So here’s a Field Guide to February to keep your hopes up all day long.
Reflections from 65 (Collective) Years of Birding the Upper Valley
Some retirees seek new pursuits in life, branching out and diversifying with their newfound free time. Others simply do more of what they always did. Chris Rimmer and Kyle Jones embody this latter approach, birding local Upper Valley haunts more than ever since their recent retirements. Read their reflections on 65 collective years spent birding the Upper Valley.
Field Guide to January 2024
Although the days are slowly growing longer, life in the Northeast still finds itself in the depths of winter. January is about survival. Wildlife that doesn’t migrate adapts instead to make it to spring. Here are a few tidbits of natural history happening outdoors this month around you.
