Most of the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail has wooded edges that is habitat for a diversity of wildlife. The trees, shrubs, vines and herbaceous ground cover provide fruit and seeds, green browse, winter cover, nesting sites, and protection from predators. One of the many services that Isabela Torres, our 2018 summer intern, provided was to design a long-term plan to increase …
This issue’s naturalist corner centers around a photo of me working along the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail in late June. In the photo, I am using my cellphone in way you might interpret as disinterest in the nature surrounding me. Typical 20-something, right? A common narrative these days is that teenagers and young adults only care about electronic devices to the …
National Geographic magazine (along with the national Audubon Society, BirdLife International, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology) is celebrating 2018 as the Year of the Bird, because 2018 is “the centennial of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the most powerful and important bird protection law ever passed” (National Geographic website). In its January issue, National Geographic includes articles with many …
Widely diverse native trees line The Pumpkinvine Nature Trail — beech, maples, oaks, hickories, tulip poplar, cottonwood, quaking aspen, black cherry, pawpaw, boxelder, redbud, hornbeam, hawthorne and eastern red cedar. Ash and American elm saplings persist, although insectborn diseases have killed mature trees. Non-native and invasive tree species, particularly white mulberry and tree-of-heaven, are prevalent in disrupted areas along …
