Rebecca Sabac had an incredible wildlife sighting recently. While driving down Highway 27 in the Everglades, something caught her attention. Up in a dead tree snag, about 30 feet high, sat a cat. With the kindest intentions, she pulled over to see if the cat needed help. This was no ordinary cat, it was [a] bobcat….
See the photos and read the full article, from the National Wildlife Federation.
The endangered whooping crane population currently stands at only about 600 in all of North America — and shootings are cutting into that number.
In the past few months, three of the continent’s tallest birds, at some five feet, have been killed: Two were apparently killed in November in Kentucky, and one was found shot dead in southwestern Louisiana on Friday.
The identities of the birds make a “senseless act” all the more “devastating,” says Robert Love of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries….
Small tortoiseshell butterfly (Aglais urticae) on barley – Tim Melling – Butterfly Conservation
Farmland butterflies have flourished thanks to last year’s hot summer, the charity Butterfly Conservation says.
The annual Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey (WCBS) recorded almost double the number of insects compared with the previous year.
Long, sunny periods provided perfect breeding conditions for some of the UK’s brightest species, it suggested.
But experts warned the mild winter could reverse the insects’ fortunes if they emerged too early for spring.
The survey has been run by Butterfly Conservation, the British Trust for Ornithology [BTO] and The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology since 2009….
Read the full, very interesting article from the BBC, at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/26242496
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Eddie’s comment: This is excellent news! For the past few years, there has been a dismaying scenario of butterfly numbers falling, throughout Britain. This has largely been attributed to inappropriately long periods of cold and/or wet weather, so it is nice to see that a warmer, drier summer brought numbers back up, perhaps to a larger extent than one might have dared hope.
As for the excellent photograph by Tim Melling, some experts say that the European Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) is actually the same species as North America’s “Milbert’s Tortoiseshell” (Aglais milberti).*
The other two North American tortoiseshells (‘California’ and ‘Compton’) are in a different genus — Nymphalis — the same as the Mourning Cloak.
* National Audubon Society Field Guide to Butterflies
An article published today in Britain, by the BBC, under the heading of ‘Bumblebees infected with honeybee diseases’, might not seem to be cause for alarm among nature lovers in America, but there can be no doubt that it is.
Honey Bee on Birds-foot-trefoil. Copyright 2013, Eddie Wren
Given that bees are a massive factor in the viability not only of the wild flowers that we all enjoy but also of many important food crops, the rise of Deformed Wing Virus [DWV] and of the microsporidian ‘Nosema ceranae‘ should be of concern to anyone who has an interest in the health of our environment, and not least to bee keepers, whose livelihoods are once again being threatened.
When I read the above article, I did a search for these two problems in the USA, and sure enough I found this this report from the American Society for Microbiology, about DWV here in the States.
As for the ‘Nosema ceranae‘, Wikipedia has plenty to tell us about the spread of this pathogen, not only in the Americas but worldwide.
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Fox News in the USA has now run a version of this story, here.
This article, by Gerry Rising, was published in the Buffalo News at the end of December, 2013, but it is of more than enough interest for us to give the URL again, here:
Back to the main LINKS page
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Audubon Society (National)
Audubon Society – Find Your Local Chapter
BugGuide.net – USA and Canada
Butterflies and Moths of North America [BaMoNA]
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center (TX)
Odonata Central – Dragonflies & Damselflies
Spiders in the USA (spiderzrule.com)
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service – News
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services – ‘Open Spaces Blog’
Wildflower Viewing Areas – U.S. Forest Service
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Please feel free to add a comment, below, recommending other URLs that should be added to this page
Back to the main LINKS page
WNY
Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens
Buffalo Ornithological Society
Nature Conservancy – Central & Western New York
NYS Department of Environmental Conservation – Western New York
Rochester Area Mycological Association – RAMA
Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History (Jamestown)
Tifft Urban Nature Preserve, Buffalo
OTHER
Audubon – New York State (with Chapter links)
Audubon – New York State – Calendar of Events
Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology – All About Birds
NYOG – New York Odonate Group (Yahoo groups)
Please feel free to add a comment below, recommending additional websites that should be included on this list.