where natural history meets art
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?”
VERMONT FISH and WILDLIFE sent out this press release. It’s great advice and ideal for Vermonters, so we asked and got their permission to post it here. Thank you, Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department (especially Tom Rogers and John Buck).
For Immediate Release: October 2, 2018
Media Contacts: John Buck, 802-476-0796
MONTPELIER, Vt – Vermonters love to see birds around their home, and putting out bird feeders is a popular way to attract our feathered friends to back yards. Vermont is among the top states in the country for people who report feeding and watching birds near their home.
However, birds aren’t the only wildlife attracted by birdseed. Continue reading “Attracting Birds to Your Yard Naturally (re-post from VT FWD)”
Let’s get ready to… MIGRATE! Every body is stocking up, either because they’re getting ready to launch themselves south or preparing for winter. Who’s getting ready? These birds! Continue reading “Through the Window: September 2018”
It was a bit of a quiet month, but we might also have been so busy that we didn’t take enough notes while indoors? Outdoors was fantastic…
Seen from the Viewing Window (or nearby) and recorded:
A warm and muggy month! Good for raising nestlings? Thanks to the sharp and patient eyes of one of our interns, we saw a few birds that are rarely spotted in our feeder area (although they can be heard in the nearby forest canopy on some of our bird walks).
Early birders continued their weekly walks this month. It’s such fun to go out with them or hear their stories afterward; each month is different. Those lists are generally recorded over on eBird. From the windows, we stick with the more well-recognized feeder and forest edge birds. Even here, there are often stories to be discovered. Continue reading “Through the Window: June 2018”