Wildlife across our state is busy this time of year. Baby birds are hatching, butterflies are emerging from cocoons and mother deer are conceiving fawns – which is often a problem when nosy humans get involved. People see what they think are abandoned fawns, take them home and often call the Wildlife Center or Animal Control people for help. In almost every instance, the fawns are not … [Read more...]

  Hidden Valley WMA in Washington County will be closed from May 15 to June 1. The closure is needed to allow time for aerial spraying for gypsy moths. Gypsy moth caterpillars feed on tree leaves and can completely defoliate large areas of forest, which often leads to death of the affected trees. To keep the WMA forest alive and healthy, contractors will spray an insecticide from a … [Read more...]

  There is a real homeless problem in Verona, near Staunton. Thousands and thousands of homeless are swarming in the edge of the woods behind the 12thhole tee box at Ingleside Golf Course. No, not human homeless, but homeless honeybees. They are looking for a new home. My golfing amigos and I were playing Ingleside this Tuesday, when we saw the swarm of bees. I had just heard about … [Read more...]

  If you love butterflies, monarch butterflies, get some milkweed seed and start it indoors right now. If you don’t have the opportunity to start the seeds, wait a few more weeks and buy plants from most any nursery. Butterflies have plenty of sources for nectar, but without milkweed, monarch butterflies cannot survive. They need that type of plant on which to lay their eggs and … [Read more...]

  The Magnificent Redbud   If you have been out and about recently, you’ve no doubt seen the magnificent redbuds, now in full bloom. Certainly no tree or bush in Virginia can exceed this beauty.  But it’s not really clear if a redbud is a tree or a bush – it’s sort of a cross between the two. And where it got its name – who knows? It’s not red at all, it’s just … [Read more...]

  (Creasy greens growing wild beside the road)   Last summer as I was driving north on Rt. 29, I saw a flowering weed beside the road so stunning that I went back to see it again. To the best of my weed-identification abilities, it was a butterfly weed – adorned in the most incredible orange I have ever seen. Since that time, I have been on the lookout for beautiful weeds and … [Read more...]

  The picture above illustrates emphatically that where is a will to survive, nature will find a way. As I mentioned last week, this has been an extraordinarily good year for jonquils. They have spread and they have flourished. Our front yard has produced a particularly bountiful crop this year. More jonquils than ever and they are ever spreading out. But this beats all. Nancy … [Read more...]

  I have never seen jonquils as lovely as this year. We have several patches in our yard that bloomed early. And they are still blooming. One group (that sometimes blooms and sometimes doesn’t) outdid themselves this spring. The flowers are a rich buttercup yellow with bright orange centers. They are simply glorious as they stretch their fragrant blossoms forward to their source, the … [Read more...]

  Some great news concerning the menhaden fishery.  New legislation has been approved by the Virginia House and Senate, which passed bipartisan legislation to transfer the management of Virginia’s menhaden fisheries from the General Assembly to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC). This comes after many years of work by the conservation and angling communities to move management … [Read more...]

By Biologist Sergio Harding   Birds are important. And we should care about what is happening to them. That is the gist of the press surrounding a recent study that estimates that nearly three billion birds have disappeared form North America since the 1970s.   The headlines are meant to grab your attention, regardless of whether you already have an interest in birds. The goal is to … [Read more...]