April bats bring May….?

Bats can squeeze in the tiniest openings. As a result, it’s not uncommon for me to get a bat in my house on occasion. At least it wasn’t for many years, before white nose syndrome became a problem in our region.

My memory certainly isn’t the best, but in my mind, a bat in [...]

It’s Your Call Challenge

Springtime brings us lots of sounds that we don’t hear the rest of the year. Geese honk overhead, peepers peep and wood frogs chortle in the wetlands. Barred owls mating calls range from their typical “Who cooks for you” to something that sounds (to me) more like laughing hyenas. Towhees admonish us to drink [...]

Love is in the Air, or it is Skunk?

This morning as I was eating breakfast, my dad looked out the window and saw a skunk walking down our driveway!  It was interesting to see it walking slowly down our gravel driveway and down towards the barnyard.  Later when I went outside, I looked for tracks in the snow but the snow had [...]

Do Nature Shots

Fritillary on Echinacea

By nature shots we don’t mean anything like jello shots.

Instead, point your camera at all things natural. Shoot video or stills. Edit and organize your work, and submit it into our third annual Pfeiffer Nature Center Film Festival!

Puff Balls

We’re looking for amateur photography buffs (regardless of whether you [...]

Tadpole Update

6/30 Update: Dr. Peter Ducey from SUNY Cortland graciously responded to our request for tadpole ID, indicating that likely candidates are wood frogs and american toads. I’m quite sure they’re not toads due to the shapes of the egg masses, so we’re left with wood frogs, one of my initial guesses. I found a [...]

Tadpole Tales

Tadpoles – captured momentarily for this photo opp

There’s a ditch near my house that is home to MANY tadpoles. I stop and watch them every day on my walk. Earlier in the season I would have told you that they were probably either wood frog or peeper tadpoles since I saw both [...]

Robins Raise a Family

I had three pairs of robins make nests in various places on my house this spring. Two of them were tucked into nooks on my front porch. It was a bit of a problem, since the robins were understandably distressed when I sat on my porch. I know it’s silly, but I modified my [...]

Who Said That?

I’ve already told you that most days I walk early in the morning, before the sun is really up. The birds are just awakening, and the greet me each day with lovely songs.

But, as I’ve mentioned, since it’s not fully light, I rarely see the birds, I have to identify them by sound [...]

Dawn Chorus

I’m a morning person. My routine, 7 days a week, is get up, throw on some sweats, and go outside with the dog for a nice, long walk. On days when I’m working at Pfeiffer Nature Center, that walk happens at about 5:00 a.m. Since that’s dark most of the year, I walk up [...]

Young Love

It’s spring, and a young man’s fancy turns to love. So does a young hawk’s, a young newt’s, a young chipmunk’s, a young…well, you get the picture.

Last month I couldn’t sit on my porch or take a walk without feeling like I should be averting my eyes. Birds, salamanders, you name it, they [...]