Have an event, group, or organization that would like to host a VCE staff member for a particular topic?
Join us for a Zoom conversation with VCE Loon Biologist Eric Hanson. In this season recap, Eric will share stories, highlights, and more from the 2026 loon season. This Zoom will also include a Q&A portion, so bring your questions related to loon management and the Vermont loon population.
Join us for November’s Youth Birding Club meetup! We’ll convene at the Kilowatt South Park boat ramp parking lot in Wilder, VT. This site, where we also held our May outing, is one of the Upper Valley’s premier birding hotspots, with excellent opportunities to see both aquatic and terrestrial birds. We’ll spend at least an hour of slow-paced birding, observing birds both on the Connecticut River and in the shrubby shoreline habitats. Binoculars will be provided for anyone who doesn’t have them, and three to four spotting scopes will be available for looking at more distant water birds. Although some of us will plan to bird until 10 am, anyone is welcome to depart earlier if they need or wish to.
Trip leaders will be Kyle Jones, Erica Faughnan, Joe Ransdell-Green, and Chris Rimmer. We’ll move at a leisurely pace, with a goal of having every young birder see birds well, rather than maximizing the number of species we tally. We encourage any youth (plus parents and/or grandparents) with an existing or potential interest in birds to join us.
We have 15 spots for kids, and registration will be first come, first serve. It is not necessary to have attended any of our previous sessions — every outing is open and inclusive to beginners, with or without an adult. We will provide additional details to everyone who registers a few days before the day, and in the event of bad weather that day.
This master gardener conference will focus on the critical role pollinators play in gardens and natural landscapes. Participants will learn about current research in Vermont and practical strategies for creating and managing habitats that support pollinators and other beneficial insects. Three experts will be featured. They include VCE’s Dr. Desirée Narango, conservation biologist, who will discuss the latest research on pollinator conservation in home landscapes; Laura Johnson, pollinator support specialist with UVM Extension, who will share practical lessons from agricultural pollinator habitat management that gardeners can apply at home; and Tobi Schulman, owner of Bird and Bee Native Plants, who will help participants explore ways to assess and improve pollinator habitats in residential landscapes. The registration fee is $50, and includes access to the live conference and presentation recordings.
