For the lunar aficionados among us, conditions at the moment aren’t looking too clear for tonight’s total lunar eclipse – the last until 2010.

Peak viewing time is expected to be about 10 p.m. in our neck of the country. This account says skies should clear by then. The Weather Channel (as of now) says basically the same thing.

Just in case, the University of North Dakota and an observatory in North Carolina both plan to stream video or continuously updated images of the eclipse online. I’d visit those sites sooner rather than later to figure out what the local prime viewing time is expected to be.

This story has a link to a video that explains the whole thing.

For those ice fishing on the West Branch and Boyds Corner reservoirs in Carmel and Kent: STOP! That’s the word from the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, which owns the drinking water reservoirs.

Ice fishing on those water bodies is prohibited until March 5 because the city will be raising and lowering their water levels, making any venture onto the ice unsafe.

The photo by TJN photographer Frank Becerra shows Steve See of Mahopac fishing on the West Branch in 2005.

Read on for the full text of the NYCDEP’s announcement. Read more of this entry »

Remember reovirus, that mystery virus afflicting crows? It’s still working its way through crow populations, leaving them with inflammation of the intestine and spleen and liver damage, according to this story from the Poughkeepsie Journal.

Spring, it’s thought, will bring some relief because the birds won’t gather in large groups once the weather warms up. Researchers feel the large groups contribute to the spread of the mystery disease. Come spring, two crows who love each other very much pair up to form a family.

For more on crows in general, check out Kevin McGowan’s crow research. He’s with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and made an appearance in my recent vulture story.

(TJN photo)

The New York Public Interest Research Group held press conferences around the state today to release results of its latest litter survey — and again seek support to expand the Bottle Bill.

The bill currently requires a 5-cent deposit on soda, beer and other carbonated drink containers.

NYPIRG is among those seeking to expand the bill to include water bottles, juice drinks and other non-carbonated beverages.

According to NYPIRG, the survey shows that beverage containers made up 35 percent (by volume) of the litter collected.

It also shows that non-deposit containers outnumbered deposit containers by nearly 2-1 margin.

Further, it shows that 21 percent of the litter, by volume, was non-deposit containers that would be captured if the Bigger Better Bottle Bill was passed.

Worth pointing out, grocery store owners and other shopkeepers have been leery of an expanded bill because they don’t want to lose any additional store space nor be responsible for managing even more drink containers.

Beverage-makers also oppose the bill, which would require the companies to return any uncollected nickels they now keep when buyers fail to redeem their bottles in favor of placing them in curbside recycling bins or just throwing them away.

The companies must also help manage the collection of any additional containers, in addition to the containers they already manage. They have argued that curbside recycling is working well and the bill need not be expanded.

NYPIRG and others, including bill supporter Gov. Eliot Spitzer, have said the expanded bill will help reduce litter, and they want any additional revenue from unredeemed bottles to help pay for state environmental programs.

Here’s a PDF of the survey results.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation has provided more information regarding the SPDES permit for the Lovett Generating Station in Stony Point.

SPDES stands for State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, and it is the way in which states oversee discharges into U.S. waterways, as the federal Clean Water Act requires.

Mirant Lovett LLC, part of the Atlanta-based Mirant Corp., apparently failed to file a renewal application for the permit, and as a result, is now the subject of a lawsuit by the Tarrytown-based Riverkeeper, a watchdog organization that focuses on the Hudson River’s health.

The DEC tells us that the agency has no record of a renewal application on file, spokeswoman Lori O’Connell said.

That means, unless there’s a lag in paperwork and the application info hasn’t been posted to the DEC database for some reason, Mirant has indeed failed to reapply.

But the bigger question, to which we don’t yet have an answer, is how the power plant can continue operating without a SPDES permit.

The DEC says it’s reviewing the matter, and points out that Mirant faces fines if found to be in violation.

Get caught up on the issues here and here.

If you’re 19 or older (18 with the right experience), you might be able to earn $14 an hour this summer patrolling the Westchester County parks as an employee of the the county’s department of Public Safety.

You’d have to be willing to wear a uniform and your employment would end in the fall, but along the way you’d get to assist park patrons, provide information on park rules and procedures, help in searches for lost children, perform basic first aid on occasion and make regular security checks of buildings and facilities.

All that comes under the supervision of county police officers whose job it is to maintain a safe and enjoyable atmosphere in the county’s parks.

First time park rangers are paid $14 an hour. The rate of pay rises in subsequent summers of service.

The job calls for a high school diploma, the minimum age of 19 and a valid driver’s license by the time you’re appointed. (An applicant may be 18 years of age if he or she is a member of a Law Enforcement Explorer’s Post with a police agency in Westchester.)

If you’re accepted, you’ll have to attend a two-week training program at the Westchester County Police Academy.
Applications are available online at the Department of Public Safety’s Web site.

One chickadee. Two cardinals. Three goldfinches. Repeat.

That could be the kind of weekend you could have this weekend, should you choose to participate in The Great Backyard Bird Count. Led by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, the count is a chance for anyone to participate in a bit of science that helps researchers understand how bird populations ebb and flow across the continent.

The data helps scientists answer many questions when it comes to birds and their numbers.

All you have to do to join in the fun is be willing to count birds for at least 15 minutes each day, from Friday through Monday (you can do this looking at your bird feeder outside your kitchen window), write down the greatest number of individuals you see of each species at any one time and enter your results at the GBBC Web page.

Forms and more information can be found through the first link mentioned above.

No telling if there’s any way to record what the photo shows. Those deer were partaking of seed a few years ago at a North Salem bird feeder. (Courtesy of TJN photographer Frank Becerra.)

Read on for a story I did last year about the GBBC. Read more of this entry »

Maybe Valentine’s Day was on their mind.

Driving across Interstate 84 this morning, I spied two birds sort of swooping through the sky in tandem. They would fly up in the sky together and then sort of just drop almost all the way to the ground.

At first I thought the birds were crows, kind of diving at each other as they sometimes do. But as I got closer, I realized the pair in the air was a couple of red-tailed hawks. The aerial antics, I’m assuming, were part of their courtship displays, which feature tandem flying and some hawk acrobatics.

The photo by my colleague Frank Becerra shows a redtail soaring over Kent last year.

Remember “white nose syndrome?” That’s the mysterious fungus plaguing hibernating bats in New York and New England, sickening and killing thousands of the winged mammals while they hibernate together for the winter.

Here’s an earlier post that gives more detail.

But here’s a recent story from the Boston Globe that explains why, right at the top, you should be concerned about a world with fewer bats: “Bats devour crop pests, midges, and mosquitoes.”

Both the Globe story and this caving message board feature the same photograph seen here, taken by the state Department of Environmental Conservation and released to the AP. See the white fuzz around their noses?

Scroll down on the caving Web site to see their white noses highlighted by red arrows.

Be thankful you have a Kenmore or Frigidaire and don’t have to rely on cut ice (like maybe your grandparents or great-grands) had to. For Ice Pond in Patterson this morning was practically free of the substance from which it takes its name.

The pond in Patterson’s southwest corner was once the scene of the Knickerbocker Ice Company’s ice harvesting operation. Ice was cut their each winter — probably until around WW I — for year-round use in folks iceboxes.

This morning, little ice covered the waterbody and what was there probably wasn’t suitable for harvesting.

It’s a relatively easy walk through the Patterson-owned William Clough Preserve off Farm to Market Road to get to Ice Pond. There’s a small parking area on the road’s west side, just past Brewster High School.

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In the past, I’ve taken the trail that hugs the shoreline of a swampy area just east of the pond. Today that trail was covered with ice sheets. The large chunks of ice, a guy walking his dog told me, were what was left after some railroad workers removed a beaver dam blocking the swamp’s outlet. Seems the industrious rodents had raised the water level and flooded the trail.

Ice Pond is bordered by two sets of railroad tracks. The set on the far side of the pond (the west side) are active Metro-North tracks. The tracks you scramble over walking in from Farm to Market Road (seen in the photo) are part of the rarely used Maybrook line.

There were maybe a dozen ducks paddling around this morning on Ice Pond, mostly hooded mergansers and ringed-neck ducks.