May is an incredible month for birdwatchers. We are blessed by the return – or passing through – of birds that are countless in both species and numbers, from shorebirds to songbirds. Among the most beloved by birders are the warblers, the so-called “butterflies of the bird world” due to their incredible colors, small size, and constant movement. As much as we want to admire them it can be a struggle at times -- they give us eye strain and neck strain. Due to their tendencies to not like human proximity and to spend much of their time in the tree tops it’s over difficult to get a good picture, let alone good view, without some really good lenses or field glasses. There is one species, though, that accommodates our interest: the palm warbler. They are the most trusting of warblers. I experienced that again firsthand last weekend when my family and I took a hike around Alfred University’s Foster Lake, which is a warbler mecca during migration. Despite constant education on the ma...

  It seems like Western New York forests are under constant attack, in wars that they can’t win. In the early 1900s, chestnut trees were exterminated from our woodlands by chestnut blight. Dutch elm disease wiped out impressive stands of elms from the 1950s through the 1980s. Ash trees have been all but eliminated by the emerald ash borer over the past 15 years, about the same time beech trees began their decline due to beech bark disease. The hemlock woolly adelgid keeps making itself known in the region. As our forests reel from those diseases and pests, and are forever changed, more pestilence is piled upon them. Another threat being posed to WNY forests is oak wilt. Until only recently, oak wilt was almost unheard of in New York. There was a small outbreak in Glenville in Schenectady County in 2008 that was contained and then found to have recurred in 2013, which was also contained. Then, in 2016, some was found in Islip on Long Island. Then along came some local findings. In...

  The Erie Canal towpath was once the interstate for itinerant workers — hoboes, if you will — who traveled from town to town in search of their next farming or handyman gig. While doing so, they frequently stopped over on my family’s farm. It was an attractive spot to set up camp because of the fresh water they could drink from a brook that runs through our woods, the same brook from which they ignited bubbling gas for cooking (there is a good reason the community is called Gasport). While there, they often killed time by carving their names and other things in the bark of the beech trees that were common in our woods. The smooth gray bark, so easy to cut with a pocketknife, has always been inviting to amateur artisans, not to mention young lovers who wanted their names forever inscribed in Mother Nature for all the world to see. The hoboes, the romantics, and anyone else interested in making a statement left their calling cards on the beeches — old-fashioned graffiti that remai...