This month’s full moon, which occurred Tuesday, is known as the Hunter’s Moon. Why? According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac: “The Harvest Moon is the full Moon nearest the autumnal equinox and is bright enough to allow finishing all the harvest chores.”

November’s full moon is known as the Beaver Moon because – “For both the colonists and the Algonquin tribes, this was the time to set beaver traps before the swamps froze, to ensure a supply of warm winter furs. This full Moon was also called the Frost Moon.”

And, speaking of the moon, this scientist feels its time to colonize it.

A black bear hanging out in a tree in Rockland County has attracted its share of rubberneckers, as this TJN story points out. Check out the additional bear photos.

And, here’s a brief round-up of black bear news from around the Internet: a black bear in Nevada with a sweet-tooth and a man-black bear fight in British Columbia.

Starfish have no brains, no blood and, apparently, a new name – or are at least undergoing an effort to have a new name.

From National Geographic:

“Marine scientists have undertaken the difficult task of replacing the beloved starfish’s common name with sea star because, well, the starfish is not a fish. It’s an echinoderm, closely related to sea urchins and sand dollars.”

My only guess is that they get washed up by passing storms. But who knows? In England, they were considering mussel fishing as the cause behind thousands of dead starfish washing ashore. In British Columbia two years ago, it was possibly a parasite.

Was that a sharp-shinned hawk or a Cooper’s hawk? I always have trouble telling those two apart. Sharp-shinned hawks were the main visitor to a hawk-banding station I visited the other day. You can read more about that in an upcoming story.

Here’s a tip sheet on how to tell the difference between the two species.

And if you want to get out and watch some migrating hawks, there’s the Chestnut Ridge Hawk Watch in Bedford and the Hook Mountain Hawk Watch in Rockland County.

The first photo shows a sharpie, the next is a Cooper’s. The bottom one shows TJN photographer Stuart Bayer making a photo for the upcoming story.

Sunday’s forecast is calling for sun and 69 degrees, so go take a hike, or at least a wander, around the Putnam County Land Trust’s Laurel Ledges Preserve.

Date: Sunday, October 12th
Time: 11 AM

Explore the Putnam County Land Trust’s Laurel Ledges Natural Area between Couch Road and Route 164 in Patterson with Dod Chahroudi, Preserve Steward. Dod will lead us on a walk to explore the recently constructed trails and bridges on this beautiful preserve. From its heights, it is possible to view the Great Swamp and Pine Island to the North, Cranberry Mountain to the East and Turtle Pond and Cornwall Hill Road to the South. Rock formations, stands of mountain laurels and beautiful views await.

There is no fee for this program and no reservations are required. For more information, call Beth Herr, PCLT Program Coordinator at 845 228 5635.

Directions: From Route 164 turn onto Cornwall Hill Road. Go 8/10 of a mile and turn right onto Couch Road. Continue for 4/10 of a mile to parking area. Preserve is on the right.

Nobody’s panicking yet, as the New Jersey state fisheries chief says in this story about Asian swamp eels being in the Garden State. But an invasive fish that eats almost anything, survives out of water and changes its sex to facilitate reproduction is nothing but bad news.

Who’s there? At the Tuckahoe Animal Hospital yesterday, it was a northern saw-whet owl. (Sorry, owl puns are hard to avoid.)

Check out the story in today’s paper and read more about the tiny owls here.

In a coincidence, the latest issue of the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s nature newsletter features a whole section on owls.

Then there’s this previous owl post.

(TJN photographer Seth Harrison’s photo shows Joseph Marchionni, a veterinary technician at the Tuckahoe Animal Hospital, holding the owl.)

Remember hearing about the great herds of buffalo that once thundered across the prairies? I’ve got the same thing in my yard, except with chipmunks.

We have seemingly thousands of chipmunks. Walk outside and one runs from the flower garden to the herb garden, two more disappear under the wood pile and half-a-dozen dive under the holly bush or into holes on the back hill. It’s getting so that you need to show ID at the chipmunk checkpoints . . . OK, I’m obviously kidding but we do have a lot of the critters.

What started me thinking about this was a red-tailed hawk that hangs out in our yard. He flew over me on Saturday while I was cutting the grass and perched in the remains of a dead elm tree. I see him a few times a week. It dawned on me today that maybe he’s there for the dining. On their food list is “Small and medium-sized mammals.”

The photo by TJN photographer Joe Larese shows a chipmunk outside his burrow in Philipstown being videotaped by a remote controlled video camera. To see the video, go here. It takes a minute or two to load.

My daughter refers to it as “The Cup.” What she means is “The Big Dipper.” And a middle-of-the-night bathroom trip is apparently a good excuse for some constellation gazing. But did you know The Big Dipper is not a constellation, but rather an asterim, which is a distinctive group of stars? The BD is actually part of the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear).

As for seeing “The Cup” out the bathroom window, my daughter was probably not successful the other night. Our bathroom window faces east-northeast. This time of year, the BD is in the northwest and Cassiopeia is in the northeast. But, still, there are a lot of stars out there.

(About the accompanying AP photo: During the 15 years that the NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) Hubble Space Telescope has orbited the Earth, it has taken three-quarters of a million photos of the cosmos—images that have awed, astounded and even confounded astronomers and the public alike. On Monday April 25, 2005, NASA and ESA released new views of two of the most well-known images Hubble has ever taken: the Eagle Nebula, and spiral galaxy M51, known as the Whirlpool Galaxy. The images, among the largest and sharpest views Hubble has ever taken, were made with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The two new images are so incredibly sharp they could be enlarged to billboard size and still retain all of their stunning details. The new Whirlpool Galaxy image showcases the spiral galaxy’s classic features, from its curving arms, where newborn stars reside, to its yellowish central core that serves as home for older stars. The graceful, winding arms of M51 are actually long lanes of stars and gas laced with dust. This sharpest-ever image, taken in January 2005, illustrates a spiral galaxy’s grand design. Some astronomers believe that the Whirlpool’s arms are so prominent because of the effects of a close encounter with NGC 5195, the small, yellowish galaxy at the outermost tip of one of the Whirlpool’s arms. At first glance, the compact galaxy appears to be tugging on the arm. Hubble’s clear view, however, shows that NGC 5195 is passing behind the Whirlpool. The small galaxy has been gliding past the Whirlpool for hundreds of millions of years. The Whirlpool is one of astronomy’s galactic darlings. Located 31 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs), the Whirlpool’s beautiful face-on view and closeness to Earth allow astronomers to study a classic spiral galaxy’s structure and star-forming processes. (AP Photo/NASA/ESA))

For all you mountain bikers out there, the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the Open Space Institute have teamed up to expand mountain biking opportunities in the Catskills.

The Open Space Conservancy, OSI’s land acquisition affiliate, recently bought an almost 20-acre parcel near Kingston.

“The Frazer acquisition will be the first of several projects within the Bluestone Wild Forest area of the Catskill Park,” said Jennifer Grossman, OSI’s vice president for land acquisition. “Not only does it provide a buffer to sensitive natural resources, but it represents the type of small-scale sustainable economic development that this region desperately needs. It’s close to popular transportation corridors, creates opportunities around which local tourism businesses will flourish, and it encourages the use and appreciation of the natural assets of the Forest Preserve.”

The Frazer property will be an important addition to an existing mountain bike trail system, as it buffers the Bluestone Wild Forest, a section of the Catskills with terrain suited for more intensive recreation such as mountain biking, hunting and hiking. Its protection was strongly supported by local residents and recreation and advocacy groups. It will permanently protect a vital conduit—via the historic Wintergreen quarry road—between the Town of Kingston community center and the trail network of the Bluestone Wild Forest, preventing incompatible development at an important gateway to the Catskill Preserve.

(TJN photo by Matthew Brown shows mountain bikers in the Blue Mountain Reservation in Peekskill.)