One of the things they don’t cover in driver-education classes (at least the ones I sat through oh so long ago) is what to do when you encounter a moose on the interstate.

For the drivers who did last night on northbound 684 in Goldens Bridge, there wasn’t much they could do. Big, dark-colored animal, nighttime and speeding cars all added up to a 9-car pileup and a dead moose.

I’ve never seen a moose in New York, even though we had one wandering around LoHud land a couple of years ago. I pasted a story after the break about the 2006 moose, which moseyed around northern Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess for quite a while back then and can be seen in TJN photographer Stuart Bayer’s photo to the right. The remains of another moose were found shortly after that in the Great Swamp in Patterson.

But I have seen moose in Maine, including a couple by the side of a remote road. Both of those animals chose to run along the road next to the car I was driving, instead of diving back into the woods. That, I have to say, was a bit disconcerting – especially since I expected them to veer in front of the car at any moment.

Anyway, after the break is the story from 2006 about another LoHud moose. Read more of this entry »

Do you have some hungry birds in your yard come fall and winter? Do you like to feed your feathered friends? Then check out the information after the break.

Read more of this entry »

Quick. Hurry. You may have only a few more minutes of summer 2008 left. Fall arrives at 11:44 a.m. today, when the sun crosses the equator on its way south.

Along with shortening days, lengthening nights and colorful leaves, another sign of the season is the presence of wild celery on the shores of the Hudson River. The aquatic plant, according to Tom Lake, a naturalist with the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Estuary Program, tends to break away from where it’s growing in the river bottom each fall and wash ashore.

Lake led a Hudson River Valley Ramble event this weekend. More on that in an upcoming post.

The Nature Conservancy yesterday purchased 14,600 acres of solitude in the Adirondacks, land that will eventually be bought by the state and added to the Adirondack Park.

From The Nature Conservancy:

“The Nature Conservancy today announces its purchase of Follensby Pond in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. This 14,600-acre property of mixed northern hardwood forests borders the state’s largest wilderness area, the High Peaks, and includes more than 10 miles of meandering frontage on the Raquette River, one of New York’s longest rivers. Its centerpiece, 1,000-acre Follensby Pond, is considered the largest lake owned by a private individual in the northeastern United States.”

Here’s more about the land.

One of the ways I know summer is coming to an end is when I see a crowd of goldfinches hopping around on the spent black-eyed Susans and purple coneflowers in the front garden. As they bob back and forth on a flower, they use their pointed bills to chisel out the seeds for a snack.

Here’s the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s fact sheet on goldfinches, which contained this gem:

“The American Goldfinch is mostly monogamous, but a number of females switch mates after producing a first brood. The first male takes care of the fledglings while the female goes off to start another brood with a different male”

The birds are late nesters, probably because they depend on seeds that don’t show up until mid-summer to feed their young. Because of that, their nests tend to survive in better shape into the fall than other birds’ homes. As this newspaper story points out, you can often find one after the leaves fall.

It’s not beeping cars and trucks but it is traffic, whale traffic that is just outside New York Harbor. Using acoustical equipment, researchers have determined that whales pass by as close as 13 miles to the harbor and near Fire Island. The project is explained here and here’s a story in yesterday’s NYT. The newspaper story features a couple of recordings for your listening pleasure.

“The recorders were placed about 13 miles from the New York Harbor entrance and off the shores of Fire Island. Information about the seasonal presence of whales will help New York state policymakers develop management plans to protect the whales. Knowing the whales’ travel paths will help ship traffic managers avoid whale collisions in New York waters. The study also will characterize the New York water’s acoustic environment and examine whether underwater noises, including shipping, affect the whales.”

The recordings were made from March to June and show that whales don’t necessarily stick to deeper waters when migrating up and down the East Coast.

The AP photo shows a humpback whale off Greenland.

A bit of fall cleaning will take place Saturday along the area’s coastlines. Saturday is the 22nd Annual International Coastal Cleanup. Locally, volunteers are scheduled to hit the shores along the Hudson River, Long Island Sound, a reservoir in Putnam County and elsewhere in search of trash.

I’ve done a couple of stories about the effort over the years. I’ve seen volunteers fill garbage bags with everything from golf balls to wine bottles to clothes to cigarettes to paper plates and more.

Read the news release from the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Go to the American Littoral Society to see a listing of local clean-ups.

The TJN photo shows a 2001 clean-up at Read Sanctuary in Rye.

Cue the teletype noise, this just in: New ant species discovered.

“A new species of blind, subterranean, predatory ant discovered in the Amazon rainforest by University of Texas at Austin evolutionary biologist Christian Rabeling is likely a descendant of the very first ants to evolve.”

Read about it here.

Listen to a teletype here.

A swath of the Hudson River that I noticed over the weekend looked like a green carpet, thanks to Eurasian water chestnut running amok. Check out the photo.

Anyway, if you want to see what lives beneath the river’s surface, you have two chances before September is done. As part of the Hudson River Valley Ramble activities, you can participate in seining expeditions. One is this Sunday in Orange County, across from Cold Spring. The second is next week at Croton Point Park.

Using large nets, program leaders could pull up almost anything from the Hudson: small striped bass, tiny tessellated darters or blue crabs. Bring your kids. If it’s sunny and warm, it’s a chance to learn something and get wet.

Call it a cross between the television shows “Deadliest Catch” and “Cops.” Whale Wars, which premieres Nov. 7 on the Animal Planet channel, follows the efforts of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as it battles alleged illegal whaling operations at the bottom of the world.

“Highlighting both the controversial whaling trade and the tactics that Sea Shepherd and its staff and volunteers use to attempt to cripple it, the series documents the group’s three-month sojourn across the icy Antarctic waters at the far end of the globe. Each week on WHALE WARS, Animal Planet will take viewers on a powerful and adrenaline-fueled adventure and spotlight how the group takes action against alleged illegal whaling operations. The Society’s fight to eradicate Japanese whaling on the high seas – where international laws are interpreted by different countries and organizations in different ways – utilizes some aggressive techniques, including ramming and disabling whaling ships; disrupting whale carcass processing; engaging in physical entanglement; and boarding and dispersing fleets of whaling vessels. For the campaign this season, Sea Shepherd christened its vessel in honor of the iconic conservationist Steve Irwin with the blessing of his wife Terri, both of whom support the
organization independent of Animal Planet.”

Check out the show here. Here’s a post from the NYT’s Dot Earth blog about some of the tactics and issues that arose during the production.

After watching the episode footage, I have this song running through my head.