When I go outside this summer I’m impressed by the amount of greenery. I don’t have data, but it’s the greenest summer–the largest volume of foliage–I remember.
This makes sense. The limiting factors for photosynthesis, Biology 101 tells us, are temperature, light, and carbon dioxide. Translating photosynthesis into plant growth–that is, new biomass–also involves availability of [...]
Last week I finished my annual American columbo census. Every year in June, I check up on a marked population of American columbo (Frasera caroliniensis) plants in the oak woods near where my wife and I live in Oshtemo Township. Here in southwest Michigan, columbo was an oak savanna plant. I suspect that today this [...]
Saturday 24 April I’m leading a field trip to the Big Island Woods, also referred to as Cooper’s Island. It’s a trip for the Kalamazoo Wild Ones chapter.
“Big Island Woods” refers to an “island” of forest in the middle of Prairie Ronde, southwest Michigan’s largest mesic (tall-grass) prairie. The village of Schoolcraft was founded just [...]
I wrote the following last night. Today, temperatures jumped into the 70s–77 as I write this at 6 PM. The forecast is for highs in the 70s and 80s for the next three days. So much for stretching out the spring.
A stretch of chilly weather, especially some cool nights below freezing, has kept spring [...]
Spring began in southwest Michigan in the past few days. One sign has been the Sandhill Cranes overhead, giving their loud rattle. They could be on their way north or they could be local birds; several pairs now nest in Kalamazoo County.
Because snow cover was so continuous, and thick, some birds that are usually here [...]
Katy and I just returned from two weeks in Costa Rica. As part of an Elderhostel–though the program is now called Exploritas–we visited five sites ranging from mangrove forest along the Pacific Coast to the rather chaparral-like vegetation called paramo around 11,000 feet above sea level on Cerro de la Muerte. Included were visits to [...]
The following is approximately what I said in my brief remarks at the Save the Colony Farm Orchard Rally last Tuesday night, 8 December 2009. I have, however, expanded on my thoughts under point 3, adding a consideration of conservation easements.
We need to recognize three aspects to the conservation value of this piece of land. [...]
Wetlands are scarce in Oshtemo Township. Its thirty-six square miles are mostly high and dry and the soils are mostly well-drained. A few kettles exist in the moraine-outwash plain topoography. These are depressions formed when ice blocks left behind during the retreat of the last Pleistocene ice sheet melted. Most kettles in Oshtemo Township don’t [...]
As we all know, HB 5207 put forth by Representative Bob Jones (D–Kalamazoo) is designed to strip the conservation/public use restrictions from the Colony Farm Orchard as a first step in turning the 54 acres into an Annex to Western Michigan University’s BTR Park. Here are the stated restrictions: “The conveyance shall provide that Western [...]
Mid-morning I looked out the window and saw a small bird in the shrubs, moving about pretty actively. It was an American Redstart, not in the black and orange adult male plumage, but rather the olive-backed, gray-headed plumage with yellow wing and tail patches that at this time of year could be a female or [...]
