Evidence of climate change is all around us. The lack of snow and increasingly wetter, warmer winters here in the Chautauqua region are troubling warning signs. I worry about the trees and the creatures dependent upon them, and about our seasonal economies based on recreation, tourism, ...

About a week before Christmas my wife and I were back on the ridge in West Virginia getting the house ready for new owners. We planned to leave before dark. When we finally got into the car at about 6 o’clock, I cracked a window. At 6:03 a tremulous whistle rose from the woods below. As ...

The grass, stiff with frost, crunches under my feet as I walk swiftly along the dimly lit trail. The sun isn’t due to come up for a few minutes. The birds are just starting to wake up, with lazy tweets and chirps coming from the trees and bushes nearby. A deer, startled by my early ...

Once again, the start of a brand new year has come upon us. It is a time when many of us make new resolutions or recommit to previous goals with renewed energy. For 29 years, the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy has been a leader in Chautauqua County with education and conservation efforts ...

Living in Western New York automatically means dealing with snow for four to five months out of the year. On top of that, residents have become accustomed to the common phenomenon known as lake effect snow. The news channels love to chat about lake effect and are quite good at keeping ...

By mid-January I’ll begin getting mail asking, “Where are my birds?” The timing of these queries varies geographically, but by mid-winter some people somewhere will wonder what happened to their birds. Unusually mild weather can be responsible. A January thaw with temperatures well ...