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News & Public Affairs Archive
Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark
In October, the bright red fruits of winterberry often go unnoticed amidst the stunning range of red, orange, yellow, and green painting every nook and cranny of the natural world. But come November, when the landscape turns nearly grayscale, that splash of lipstick red on the landscape is a most welcome sight.
Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com.
Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark
I watched a flitting dart of a small bird zooming one way, then I’d hear a brief scuffing against the clapboard of the building with its diminutive feet and wingtips, then darting back from where it came and disappearing. This happened over and over again as if mechanized.
Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com.
Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark
Ring-billed gulls flock together to feed in open spaces in the fall and spring in Maine on their way to more northern summer haunts and more southern winter haunts. And haunting they can certainly be if you’re a person who gets uneasy about seeing large flocks of birds in one place. Just ask Alfred Hitchcock what could happen.
Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com.
Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark
Despite their reputation for being a staple of the New England diet and landscape, apple trees are actually native to what is now Kazakhstan at about the same latitude as Bangor, Maine. Apples reveal a crisp slice of human history as rich as the flavor of apple pie.
Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com.
Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark
Maine is doubly famous when it comes to salmon. For one, Maine is the last stronghold in the country for wild sea-run Atlantic salmon. Their populations have been so reduced because of overfishing, pollution, and dams that they are listed as a federally endangered species and fishing for them is illegal. Landlocked Atlantic salmon are more often simply called “landlocked salmon” in Maine to help differentiate them from their sea-run brethren. These landlocked populations were stranded in inland lakes and ponds after the last ice age.
Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com.
Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark
I drive by that copse of poplar trees every day and yet I have not stopped to absorb or photo-document their splendor. But to these wayward travelers from perhaps a city or suburb, our dead end road was as strange, quaint, and special as Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Sometimes it takes tourists to remind me of just how special our place is.
Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com.
Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark
Sunchokes are also commonly known by the ridiculous name “Jerusalem artichokes,” for these are neither from Jerusalem, nor are they artichokes. Instead they are plants that are native to North America from Newfoundland to Saskatchewan and down to Georgia.
Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com.
Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark
The beginning of the school year is marked by flocking behavior that Canada geese embody so well. But why flock?
Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com.
