Animals & Wildlife

Come join Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper for our first River Tour of the 2012 Tour season!  The first tour is the Strawberry Island Paddle and it is scheduled for Saturday, June 2 from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.   We will launch from East River Marsh on Grand Island.   This tour involves paddling approximately three miles of the Upper Niagara River.  Moderate experience is suggested due to wind, current, and wave conditions.   Space is limited for this popular tour, so register early!

“It’s the dewit-e-o bird,” I said as a group of us walked through the woods on an Audubon bird walk.  A new bird call to me, I could clearly hear the words given to the bird song as a memory aid.  But without looking in my notes, I couldn’t remember what I should look for flitting around in the trees.

A fellow birder helped me, remembering it was a Hooded Warbler.  Despite hearing two birds sing repeatedly “wit-dewit-dewit-e-o” it took us about 10 minutes to spot one.  With patience and persistence, we finally saw the aptly named bright yellow warbler with its distinctive black hood.  Without being able to match the bird song to the specific bird, I don’t think we would have seen that bird or many other birds on our forest walk.  The trees and bushes had already leafed out, making it difficult to discover our feathered friends.

OPINION / COMMENTARY

The article was originally published in Artvoice on May 18, 2012.  The author is founder of GreenWatch and the Learning Sustainability Campaign.  Click here to visit GreenWatch on Facebook.

Cinco de Mayo, the fifth day of May, is essentially a regional holiday celebrated in the Mexican state of Puebla, especially in its capital city of the same name.  The holiday celebrates the defeat of the French army at the Battle of Puebla in 1862.  It is not Mexican Independence Day, which is celebrated nationally on September 16.

At first glance, you might not think that Puebla and Buffalo have little in common. You would be wrong.

Allegany State Park is always the site of the Allegany Nature Pilgrimage, an outdoor learning experience that combines fun with a variety of nature oriented activities.  Its 54th event will be June 1-3, headquartered at Camp Allegany in the Red House area.

Allegany State Park abounds in wildlife, and it is not uncommon to see deer, porcupines, raccoons, and the occasional black bear.  There are also incredible numbers of wildflowers, birds, butterflies, and trees.

For years this event, always the weekend after Memorial Day, has attracted hundreds of both seasoned naturalists and inquisitive beginners who have delighted in this traditional weekend of natural history, enjoying walking, hiking, and classroom studies of the habitats surrounding them.

Water is an integral part of Buffalo’s history and identity.  Key to the region’s industrial growth for over a century, our water is today the focus of remediation, recreation and a new regional economy.  The next step in our evolving relation to water involves understanding and conserving the fish and wildlife communities and ecological functions of our local rivers and streams.

Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper, with help from a technical advisory committee of habitat and wildlife experts, is currently undertaking this task through development of a habitat conservation strategy for the Niagara River watershed.