where natural history meets art
April is upon us! You know what that means: hiccuping weather. Winter today, spring tomorrow, and a whole lotta mud, especially on the roads. Drive with care, especially if you’re birding at the same time. (We recommend pulling over. I mean, really.)
What? It also means returning species? You better believe it. What’s your favorite harbinger of spring?
So this is the second time we’re posting this month’s entry, because Things Happened (not caused by us) at our host and our site had to be reset to a backup version. Anything we added or edited after that date went “poof”! Eeek.
However, we now have even more frequent backups (lesson learned!)… but I can’t remember much about February! Of course, we did keep the bird list record, so there’s that. Also, if you run a website using anything like wordpress or joomla or squarespace or such, please keep your plugins and site software up-to-date. It’s good for all of us. Go get your updates and backups scheduled and running… then get outside and check out the birds! You deserve it.
It’s pretty quiet this month for the birds, but we’ve had some great school groups and our It’s A Bird’s Life talks for 2019 started up. Continue reading “Through the Window: January 2019”
Starting Wednesday, January 23, we’ll host the new six-week It’s a Bird’s Life series. Sponsored by a local Community Senior Center and the Birds of Vermont Museum, meet on six consecutive Wednesdays at 1:30 at the Birds of Vermont Museum, and learn more about specific Vermont birds—as well as two sessions connecting coffee and maple to birds!
Continue reading “New “It’s a Bird’s Life” talks starting soon”
A Call to Artists from the Birds of Vermont Museum
We wander in gardens, foster habitats, explore ecosystems. Life buzzes, entwines, fosters, interacts—one species to another and another and another. Birds and insects and plants thrive together. Can we pause, notice? Can we let the outside in, become as intimately connected to the world around as a pollinated plant is to its pollinators?
We seek artworks that explore, examine, and express pollination—metaphorical and otherwise—for our 2019 art exhibit, Pollinate This!
We hope you are enjoying the turning of the year, by light and by calendar. We often find winter refreshing, an opportunity for useful reflection and a chance to plan and prepare.
Can’t do that all day though, so we turn to our feeders and see who else is here. In December, that included… Continue reading “Through the Window: December 2018”
November has been a little surprising, as we’ve gotten rather more snow than usual. Puts us in mind of winter birds, instead of fall….
So which ones have been around?
For the last six years, the Birds of Vermont Museum has engaged with local artists to present an annual bird-centered community art exhibit. The works are mindfully created; the artists’ visions and voices tell their stories through a variety of expressive media. The 2018 show Common Grounds focused on the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) of 1918, now in its 100th year. Despite challenges, the MBTA has brought hope, promise, and conservation success to global citizenry, naturalists, and conservationists, and birds. The show became a small-scale reflection of a global purpose.
Great things require creative community backing: physically, financially, and collaboratively. We work together to imagine, investigate, communicate, and protect birds. Artists, educators, legislators, and conservationists unite in their concern and support for the welfare of migratory birds and all wildlife everywhere.
This collaborative effort created and now maintains the Birds of Vermont Museum, an institution with presence in the scientific, cultural arts, and educational communities. Many people, including you, have never wavered in their belief in the Birds of Vermont Museum and our mission. The Museum relies on this generosity for special programs, day-to-day operations, educational activities, and the care and keeping of Museum lands. We hope you will continue to support us by making a year-end donation today.
As an extra thank you, all donors who give at least $200, received by December 31, 2018, will receive a selection of note cards created by artists who contributed to the Common Grounds show.
October is great, because it’s the month of the Big Sit!. That’s a day when we sit around with Team Loonatics and look for birds. They do all the hard work: cooking, listing, watching, identifying. We host them and are happy. Their list of birds this year doesn’t quite match our viewing window list (below), since we can’t always see from inside what they see from outside. It’s great to see and hear them all.
Some of the more northerly species are returning! Continue reading “Through the Window: October 2018”
Some of us coffee-drinkers are pretty well steeped into knowing everything we can about the beverage and its effects on the world. Most of us are happy just to have some coffee. Where do you fall in this spectrum?
We’re up at the Feverish World Symposium this weekend, with a pop-up exhibit called How Do You Take Your Coffee? Come check it out—ask questions, take a pledge, and learn something about migratory birds and different types of coffee agriculture. Stimulate your curiosity! Continue reading “What do you know about coffee certification?”