A recent viral trend on social media has been the sharing of photographs from 2016. Users of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and the like are reminiscing about a decade ago, showing nostalgia for their younger years, or finding escape in the perceived innocence of 2016. Last week, I decided to participate in the craze with one of my daily #Nature365 posts, sharing a collage of nature moments from that year. One such event of 2016 really stood out, as it was my first ever – and, to this date, only – encounter with a wood turtle.   While driving on County Route 38 in Allegany County, I saw a turtle crossing the road. Like any nature lover worth his salt, I got out of the truck and picked him up to put him in a safe spot. I expected the slow-moving pedestrian to be a painted turtle which is, without a doubt, the most common turtle in Western New York. So, I was startled – and incredibly happy -- when I discovered it was a wood turtle. It was rewarding to have my good deed magnifi...

  If you say the word “duck” to someone of my vintage or older, the first image that likely comes to their mind is that of the mallard. The green-headed drake and the brown hen are locked in our memories because we grew up in an era in which they were everywhere and in great numbers. I don’t know what younger adults would associate with ducks. I can’t help but think it would be Donald Duck because mallards here in the eastern United States have become considerably less ubiquitous than they once were. Since the late-1990s, their population in the region has dropped nearly 40%. Now it’s at the point that when I see them I think, “ah, it’s good to see you again.” It’s especially concerning since other species of waterfowl have seen their numbers grow. So, what happened to the mallards? That’s the question that’s been dogging biologists and wildlife management officials. The consensus is that it comes down to a tainted gene pool. Our mallards have had their population infiltrated by ...

The older readers of this column may remember the once abundant American chestnut. This magnificent tree dominated the Eastern landscape with quick-growing specimens that routinely reached heights of 100 feet. By the late-1950s, chestnuts were a thing of the past. More than 3 billion of the trees (25 percent of the entire Appalachian forest) succumbed to a blight brought to North America from Asia. Now, true American chestnuts are extremely rare -- only a select few with hardy genes can be found in areas off the beaten path. Those beleaguered trees almost never reach 50 feet in height and are always short-lived. Similarly, baby boomers and some of their very oldest offspring will remember how the impressive American elm used to dot the countryside and line city streets. It was a long-lived tree with a thick trunk and wide canopy. Following the demise of the chestnut it, too, faced an invasive attack. Dutch elm disease -- a fungal infection spread by an Asian beetle -- ravaged the elms ...

If your neighborhood was graced by carolers during the holidays count yourself as lucky. The singers’ beautiful voices filled the void of silence that otherwise afflicts Western New York’s winters. If your neighborhood is graced by nature’s counterpart to those musical souls you’re just as lucky. Other than some rather basic sounds, most species of birds remain quiet this time of year. It’s a little too cold to focus on attracting the opposite sex and marking territory. That, and their attention is purely on the questions of survival: How do they get the calories they need for this cold weather without expending too many of those energy points that are precious and few this time of year? How do they hide from predators when the trees and grasses are stripped of foliage?    But, there is a bird that thinks differently, acts differently, and sounds differently this time of year. That would be the Carolina wren, the tiny caroler of our winters. The males of these wee creatures si...

Birdwatchers are, in some way, listers. Most keep life lists, counting all the species of birds that they’ve ever seen. Then you have birders who tabulate both species and numbers for various special annual events like the Christmas Bird Count, Feederwatch, and the Great Backyard Bird Count. And, there are those who take on a competitive Big Year, trying to accumulate as many birds as possible in a calendar year. The North American record is held by John Weigel who saw 840 species in 2019, surpassing his 2016 record of 836. Earlier in this decade, I started something I call the Little Year. By doing so, I keep count of all the species I see in New York State each year. I’m not driven to accumulate as many species as possible, so I don’t go out of my way to gather gull species in the wintry Niagara Gorge, nor do I spy upon wetlands at wildlife refuges in May to get shorebird species, and I don’t chase down rare species whose locations were shared among birders online. My only goal is to...