Archives for 2020

Despite this unusual year and the adjustments to some of our planned activities necessitated by the pandemic, we were able to conduct most of the research we had planned and continue to engage with our audience, often in new ways. In Year in Review you find a detailed and illustrated narrative of our activities in 2020. Links to some of the new digital content we created this year are available here.

“Farmscape Ecology”, the movie, is now on-line.
Created by Jon Bowermaster of Oceans8 Films and funded by the Hudson Valley Farm Hub

View the movie here.
 
Farming is ever-evolving. Today, when we think about what’s to come next for farmers a key question is, “How do we produce food and still maintain a livelihood for farmers, while respecting the needs of other organisms with which we share the land?” As part of the Applied Farmscape Ecology Research Collaborative, scientists and researchers examine that question by researching and monitoring soil, water, and wildlife to discover how farming and wildlife co-exist.

Aside from profiling some of our own work, this movie includes profiles of many of our colleagues in the Applied Farmscape Ecology Research Collaborative, including Anne Bloomfield (an ornithologist at the Farm Hub), Shafiul Chowdhury (Director of Enviornmental Geochemical Science at SUNY – New Paltz), Gabriel Perron (microbial ecologist at Bard College) and Jason Tesauro (herpetological researcher at Hudsonia).

The Flora of Columbia County (Part 1): Introduction and Some Spring-flowering Plant Families is the most recent installment of presentations about the plants and animals that share the landscape with us. Botanist Claudia Knab-Vispo reviews some helpful botanical concepts and then introduces spring-flowering plants of five plant families that are found wild-growing in Columbia County.

Past presentations include An Introduction to Butterflies and Their Natural History by Dylan Cipkowski and The Butterflies of Various Habitats in Columbia County by Conrad Vispo.

Are you interested in learning more about butterflies in our region, including rare habitat specialist species?

If so, consider watching Conrad and Dylan’s two part presentation on Columbia County butterflies.

The first part of the presentation by Dylan Cipkowski gives an introduction to butterflies and their natural history.

The second part of the presentation by Conrad Vispo introduces a variety of Columbia County habitats and some of the butterflies that live in each.

You may also enjoy browsing our Butterfly webpage which offers additional regionally-relevant resources, including information about the new Butterfly Atlas Project and how to participate.

Because we are currently unable to offer any guided ecology walks in person, we are providing some new online resources to help guide your explorations of the natural world in Columbia County during this time of physical distancing.

Monday through Saturday, our staff takes turns posting daily photographic essays entitled “Farmscape Wonder Wanders” both on Facebook and in our blog Progress of the Seasons Journal. In these essays, we share what we see, learn, and find interesting during our own explorations of natural areas here in the County. We invite you to “come for a walk” with us and then also to share your own discoveries. The Sunday posts are a potpourri of select seasonal observations contributed by the community. They also contain a brief comparison of this year’s seasonal events with historical events recorded from our area for the same calendar week in the period between 1826-1875.

We also have created a new webpage “Spring Flora of Columbia County,” where—from now until the end of May 2020—we will assemble weekly a virtual bouquet (really, just a pdf poster) of the flowers currently seen in the County. These “What is in bloom?” posters (see example for the week of 21-28 March 2020) have links to species descriptions of each flower to facilitate learning more about them.

We hope these small offerings from the natural world will enrich your days, entice you to experience nature yourself, and bring a little bit of peace into this turbulent time.