The Northern Woodlands Newsletter
is as follows:
Calendar
A Look at the Season’s Main Events
Virginia Barlow
Second Week of March
Bluebirds will soon be looking for a nice, dry, clean place to raise a family. They prefer a neighborhood that features a fair amount of open land.
Like all fish-eating ducks, the hooded mergansers now moving north have serrated bills for holding their slippery prey.
Many sodium-deficient mammals seek out antlers and the bones of freshly killed deer and other mammals.
Third Week of March
Male striped skunks are on the prowl and can cover a lot of territory – unless they get hit by cars. Females will give birth to six to eight skunklets in about two months.
Moose are shedding their long winter coats. The new fur will continue to grow over the summer and be ready for next winter.
The courtship displays of the woodcock can now be heard. You can watch them at dusk, if you slowly move toward the strange “peenting” sound made by the male.
These listing are based on observations and reports in our home territory at about 1,000 feet in elevation in central Vermont and are approximate. Events may occur earlier or later, depending on your latitude, elevation – and the weather.
EDITOR’S BLOG
Dispatch from the Sugarwoods 2014 – Part 1
Dave Mance III
As our sugaring operation grows, it gets harder to tell where one season ends and the next begins. From a production standpoint, last season ended on April 9, 2013, which is a logical place to draw a line. I’m smiling as I remember that day; the feeling of satisfaction we had gazing at the rows of full syrup drums. It had been, production wise, our best season ever…
THE OUTSIDE STORY
Clay Babies
Jack Rodolico
Deep in the heart of the last ice age, at the bottom of a glacial lake, the clay babies were born. Before I tell you exactly what a clay baby is, here’s how to find one. Take a stroll along the Connecticut River or its tributaries and find a bank of thick clay. Next, get dirty…
Full Article Text
Download the Article
Coyotes: Listening to Tricksters
Brian Mitchell
As the sunset colors fade from purple to black, the forest is dimly illuminated by a first quarter moon. An eerie sound breaks the calm. It is not the long, low, slow howling of wolves that can be heard further north, but the group yip-howl of coyotes…
Full Article Text
Download the Article
Visit the Outside Story Archive
FEATURED ARTICLE
Fantastic Animals of the Northeast
Rachel Sargent
Many places have fantastical creatures: the Loch Ness monster in Scotland, Sweden’s skvader (half hare, half wood grouse), and, of course, the Pacific Northwest’s tree octopus. The state of Wyoming has even gone so far as to declare a hunting season for its mythical jackalope…
TEACHER’S GUIDE
The Economics of Sugaring
Sandra Murphy
To Tap or Not to Tap, by Andrew Fast and Steve Roberge
When Tapping, Don’t Disregard Red Maple, by Tim Wilmot
A Place in Mind, by Catherine Tudish
Fast and Roberge’s article offers students insights into the economics of maple sugaring, helping them understand why a gallon of syrup costs upwards of $45 dollars today. Wilmot’s article adds to the story, suggesting an avenue (tapping red maples) that can increase sap yield, and Tudish’s article gives the flavor of the sugaring experience.
Visit two sugaring operations in your community with your students. If possible, one should be a large-scale operation that utilizes vacuum, reverse osmosis, steam recovery devices, and other state-of-the-art technologies. The other should be a small-scale operation, utilizing more traditional technologies-buckets, hand- or horse-drawn transport, wood-fired evaporator. Before visiting, students should prepare questions for whomever is in charge of the sugaring operations-questions that delve into the finances, aesthetics, philosophy, and so on of their sugaring operation. Then have each student compare and contrast the two in an essay, addressing such issues as efficiency, economy of scale, time commitment, net profits (or losses), and more.
As always, don’t miss the chance to do a bit of sugaring with your students-even a single bucket on a schoolyard tree, boiled down on a parent’s woodstove and served up with pancakes made on an electric griddle in the classroom, can celebrate this age-old rite of spring.
Website: Massachusetts Maple Producers Association has lots of interesting information about maple sugaring, including information on economics. Likewise every other state in the Northeast has its own Maple Producers Association. Simply search “maple producers” on the internet, and you’ll come up with a full listing.
Book: Backyard Sugarin’: A Complete How-to Guide, Third Edition, by Rick Mann. Countryside Press: 2003. For thirty years, this book has provided guidance for the home sugarer and can help you and your students tap and boil successfully.
WHAT IN THE WOODS IS THAT?
Our Biweekly Guessing Game!
A reader in southern Vermont submitted this collection of seven different cones (not all were found in the forest). Can you ID them all from left to right?
Every other week we run a photo of something unusual found in the woods. Guess what it is and you’ll be eligible to win a copy of The Outside Story, a paperback collection of our Outside Story newspaper columns. A prize winner will be drawn at random from all the correct entries. The correct answer, and the winner’s name, will appear in next week’s column.
View the full image and enter this week’s contest
This week’s contest deadline is 8:00 AM, Wednesday, March 19, 2014.
PREVIOUS CONTEST ANSWER
Congratulations to our winner Kevin Blake of Newport, VT! Kevin receives a copy of our book, The Outside Story.
Bob Chandler came across this scene on a logging job in Maine.
NW Answer:
“The white debris on the tree is actually ‘sawdust’ from a feller-buncher that cut a nearby tree. The chips flew out of the saw head and stuck/froze to the nearby spruce,” explains Bob Chandler.
Visit our What In The Woods Is That? contest archive.
NEWS & EVENTS
Climate Change in Focus Video Contest
The National Environmental Education Foundation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have partnered to offer a climate change video contest to middle school students and teachers. The challenge is to create a video that is 30-120 seconds long that answers the following questions:
Why do you care about climate change?
How are you reducing carbon pollution or preparing for the impacts of climate change?
Prizes will be awarded to the top three finalists. The submission deadline is March 18, 2014. Click here for full contest information and direct questions here.
Courtesy of the Center for Northern Woodlands Education