Uncategorized

by Kyle Bradford.

The freshwater tidal swamp of the Lewis A. Swyer Preserve in Stuyvesant was the destination of our Natural History Outing on July 6th. The Hawthorne Valley Farmscape Ecology Program facilitates these Natural History Outings as a way to invite anybody to participate in the joy of discovering and documenting the plants and animals of different areas in Columbia County. These outings are not guided nature walks, but impromptu explorations, often at locations we have never (or at least not in a long time) visited ourselves.

In 1847, Asa Fitch, who was to become New York’s (in fact, the USA’s first) state entomologist, published a paper entitled “Winter Insects of Eastern New York“, it was based primarily on his observation in and around his home of Salem in Washington County. The paper begins with this evocative introduction,