Autumn in Vermont © Kent McFarland
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October is a memorable month for many reasons. The leaves change from summer emerald to autumn auburn and gold. Creatures of all sizes flit and scurry as they prepare for winter. People's homes become adorned with carved pumpkins, cackling witches, and looming ghosts. This field guide highlights a handful of Vermont's Halloween-themed species in honor of the season. But beware—some of nature's marvels can be quite frightful.
Click here to read the full field guide to October.
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Welcoming Susan into Her New Role
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Susan Hindinger holds a GPS-tagged Bicknell's Thrush on Mount Mansfield. © Susan Hindinger |
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As of October 1, Susan Hindinger has officially taken VCE’s helm as Executive Director. Susan may not be a new face to many of you—for the past nine years, she has served as our Associate Director, where her innumerable accomplishments include masterfully shepherding development of VCE’s strategic plan. She is looking forward to leading VCE into its new chapter, and we at VCE know that her thoughtful leadership and clear vision of the future will help us continue to flourish. Please join us in welcoming Susan into her new role! |
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A Soggy Wrap to VCE’s 2022 Mansfield Season
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The VCE banding crew managed smiles and good humor despite a wet, chilly season finale that yielded few birds and no Bicknell’s Thrushes. © Charles Gangas |
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Weather spares no one, and VCE’s wrap-up 2022 banding session on Mansfield exemplified the adage. Our well-laid plan to spend the nights of 19-20 September on our ridgeline study plot was thwarted by unseasonably cold, wet conditions. Finally, eight days after our original planned outing, we gambled on a tenuous but less-than-dire forecast and went for it.
Read the full story here.
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Fire Management in the Green Mountains |
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The west side of the Dome Trail shows evidence of previous prescribed burns used to manage forest structure (left). The east side of the trail where prescribed burns have never been used (right).
© Ryan Rebozo (both)
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True wildfire may be an uncommon feature of Vermont's landscape. However, interest in using prescribed burns as a management tool—particularly in Vermont's dry oak forests—is growing. A new collaborative project is examining the efficacy of using prescribed burns to manage oak forests.
Check out the full story here.
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Help VCE Carry Out Our Mission |
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A color-banded Eastern Meadowlark with a GPS tag gets ready to be released. © Jason Hill
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It's easy to support VCE’s biodiversity research and conservation work throughout the entire year. A monthly contribution—even $5 or $10 per month—makes an enormous impact. Many of our recurring gift donors say that giving a gift every month allows them to give more than they could in a single lump sum.
Monthly recurring contributions help keep VCE's research and conservation programs looking toward the future.
Please consider giving a monthly recurring contribution, and visit VCE's online donation page to set it up. However you choose to contribute, please know that we deeply appreciate your support for VCE and your commitment to conservation. Thank you!
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Birder Broker Program Featured
in Audubon Magazine
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A group of birders participates in a workshop. © Liza Morse |
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A collaborative project co-led by VCE and Bridget Butler (the Bird Diva) was recently featured in Audubon Magazine. Birder Broker connects landowners interested in learning more about birds on their property with experienced birders looking for new places to go birding. Over 80% of forested land in Vermont is privately owned, and often largely understudied when it comes to wildlife surveys. Together, landowners and birders can help us understand bird populations and strengthen conservation strategies. Check out the article online or in the latest edition of Audubon magazine to read highlights from the fabulous volunteer birders and landowners that contribute to this project. You can also learn more about it on our website.
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VCE Haitian Colleague Receives Prestigious Conservation Award |
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Anderson Jean inspects a banded Rufous-throated Solitaire during a VCE training workshop in La Visite National Park, Haiti in February 2013. Photo by Juan Carlos Martínez-Sánchez |
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Longtime VCE colleague and close friend Anderson Jean has made his native Haiti more than a little proud. His choice as the 2022 recipient of Stanford University’s top environmental prize, the Bright Award, is a remarkable achievement by any measure. This prestigious annual award “recognizes unsung global sustainability heroes around the world” and is “presented to an individual or group for their outstanding work in preservation and sustainability.” Anderson will formally receive the award in an October ceremony at Stanford in Palo Alto, CA.
Read the full article here.
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Bird Migration Explorer Uses VCE Data |
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A map of the Bicknell's Thrush movements made with VCE data. |
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Bird migration ties the world together. Whether it’s Bobolinks’ incredible journey between Argentina and Vermont, or Bicknell’s Thrushes' island hopping to Hispaniola, birds bridge divides between nations and continents.
The current wave of southbound movements for many of our breeding birds are making naturalists everywhere pause and marvel at the natural wonder of migration. National Audubon Society and partners recently developed a new tool, the Bird Migration Explorer. Using GPS and other methods, as well as data collected through Vermont eBird, this program allows you to delve into individual birds' seasonal movements.
Understanding migration and overwintering movements of birds is key to conserving species across their full annual lifecycle. This holistic approach also allows us to understand habitat use patterns and determine locations in urgent need of protection. We encourage you to explore this tool, and visualize the migrations of some of your favorite birds.
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A Promethea Silk Moth (Callosamia promethea), one of Vermont's five known silk moth species.
© Kent McFarland
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Giant Silk Moth Cocoon Watch – Help us unravel the mysteries of Vermont's most charismatic moths by participating in the cocoon watch! From October 1 to December 31, we invite you to help us find as many cocoons as possible. Whether you consider yourself a mothing expert or an amateur, we encourage you to join in the fun! Simply photograph your cocoon observations and upload them to iNaturalist. Learn how to identify cocoons, and get all the details for how to participate on the VAL website.
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Photo-observation of the Month
North American Porcupine
by Craig Hunt
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A North American Porcupine snacks on fresh fall apples. © Craig Hunt |
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Congratulations to Craig Hunt for winning the September 2022 Photo-observation of the Month for the Vermont Atlas of Life on iNaturalist! His photo of a North American Porcupine munching on fallen apples received the most faves of any iNaturalist observation in Vermont during the past month.
While porcupines are famous for their fondness for salty snacks—often gnawing on axe handles, work gloves, and other salt-infused items around people’s homes—they certainly have a sweet tooth too! The harvest season is as bountiful for wild animals as it is for farmers, and falling apples provide food for everything from deer to porcupines to yellowjackets. Craig’s photo of this porcupine enjoying a fresh apple shows off two features often difficult to view on a porcupine. The subtle transition from defensive spines on the back to soft hairs on the face and underbelly is easy to spot in this photo, as are the long, sharp claws shown clutching an apple here, which are also used to climb thick-barked trees with ease. Porcupines are often difficult to appreciate up close for a good reason, so thank you, Craig, for providing a close look at one of Vermont’s most interesting mammals having a classic fall treat.
Visit the Vermont Atlas of Life on iNaturalist, where you can vote for the winner this month by clicking 'fav' on your favorite photo-observation. Make sure you get outdoors and record the biodiversity around you, then submit your discoveries—and you could be a winner!
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The Vermont Center for Ecostudies promotes wildlife conservation across the Americas using the combined strength of scientific research and community engagement. Find us online at vtecostudies.org
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