Monthly Archives: January 2020

Signs of Winter 7: Eighth Annual House Cat Day!

(Click here to listen to an audio version of this blog!) Seven years ago I wrote about Groundhog Day and suggested that we change this early February day-of-prediction to focus not on an animal that is sound asleep in his … Continue reading

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Signs of Winter 6: The Tree of Life and Pondering the Inevitability of Change

(Click here to access an audio version of this blog!) The Tree of Life is a symbol found throughout a myriad of mythologies and religions. From the ancient Middle East to the shared books of Judaism and Christianity, to Buddhism, … Continue reading

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Signs of Winter 5: Sounds from the Underground!

(Click here to listen to an audio version of this blog!) Monitoring sounds in an ecosystem (also called “acoustic monitoring”) is a common technique for determining the presence of organisms that are hard to visually detect. Bird songs, for example, … Continue reading

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Signs of Winter 4: Natural History of the White Ash (and more!)

(Click here to listen to an audio version of this blog!) In 1984 a group of students and I built a nature trail on the campus of Penn State New Kensington. The students were inspired by a trail we had … Continue reading

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