Highlights
January 2024 - February Bioreserve Walk
ACTIVITY ALERT - A walk in the winter woods/cancelled
Dress for the weather. Water and snack always a good idea. Rain or heavy snow cancels walk.
Here's one of our favorite New England poems, apropos the season.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it's queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
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ACTIVITY ALERT - Walk rained out in January, trying again in February
February 10, Saturday, 9 a.m. Meet at Fighting Rock Corner, intersection Wilson, Blossom and Bell Rock Roads, Fall River, MA within the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve. We will be walking the northwestern section of the Twenty Mile Trail. Length of Saturday's walk 6 1/2 miles.
Dress for the weather. Water and snack always a good idea. Rain or heavy snow cancels walk.
Maybe not on our February 10th walk day, but by the last week of February signs of spring preparing to return can be seen by the sharp eyed woodland observer. Thermogenic plants, like our local skunk cabbage, have the ability to produce heat which allows them to shorten their period of winter dormancy thereby giving them a competitive advantage by allowing them to start growing while competing wetland species are still dormant in winter mode. The warmth emanating from the plant also disperses the flower odor and encourages pollinating insects to hang around the spadix (flower) longer.
If the sun cooperates and we get a rare 50 degree afternoon in late February we may see a bright spot of living color in the mostly grey and brown still winter woods. This question mark butterfly (Polygonia interrogationist) took a break from hibernation and was resting in the sun on a 54 degree late winter afternoon,
Many folks think that all butterfly species die at summer's end except for the black and orange monarch that, incredibly, migrates south to spend the winter mostly in Mexico, although some do winter in Florida and the Caribbean Islands ...but not all species die or follow the sun south in fall. Utterly charming, when seen on a chill 50 degree winter afternoon, is the mourning cloak butterfly, another butterfly species that stays in its hollow tree, rock crevice or other sheltered location sleeping away the New England winter until warmed by the late winter sun.
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