Highlights

March 2022 - Ban PFAS, Mar.20, Bike Ride, April Walk, Spring

ACTION ALERT -   Ban toxic polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)

 

The Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow is working to get PFAS out of consumer products--food packaging, carpets/rugs, firefighter uniforms, personal care products and more.


To learn more about this issue and how to get involved go here: https://bit.ly/3MqDQ6D

 

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INFO ALERT - She's coming! Getting closer. She's expected to arrive Sunday, March 20, at 11:35 a.m. Celebrate!

Hardy members of her entourage have already arrived. Below are a few we've been seeing.

As the seasons change, tell us what you've been noticing in your neck of the woods!

 

We noticed our first crocus of the year on March 6, 2022




The snowdrops popped up the last week in February.
 

 
Coltsfoot opens for the sun the second week in March.



There may still be some ice on vernal pools, but that doesn't stop the spotted salamanders and the wood frogs from jumping in. It is time to mate and lay some eggs.

 
 

The skunk cabbage blooms the earliest of all and that is because it is "warm blooded." The skunk cabbage uses thermogenesis to generate heat and shelters its flower within an enclosing, hooded spathe.


 

The mourning cloak hibernates under bark and in hollow trees and is the first butterfly to appear in local woods on sunny March days. If out before flowers are blooming these butterflies follow sapsuckers and other woodpeckers to feed on the sap left behind by the birds.


 

The pussy willow flowers wear a furry, soft coat. They are another very early March spring flower. 

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  Full Worm Moon Bike Ride

Bike Fall River had it's first Sunset/Moonlight Ride of the season on 3/18/22. The day was beautiful and unseasonably warm. So, there was much excitement amongst the group as we met. We rode down to Colt State Park to view the sunset. Then we rode to Independence Park in Bristol, RI. The view of the harbor was magnificent as the sky darkened. We only did about 12 miles for our first time out.

 

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ACTIVITY ALERT -  Desperately seeking Persephone! 

 
April 9, Saturday, a walk in the forest searching for early signs of spring

Meet at 9 a.m. at Blossom Road in Fall River approximately 600' south of 2929 Blossom Road, the Watuppa Reservation Headquarters. All are welcome. Blossom Road north of our meeting location is not motor vehicle friendly. Make sure you arrive at the meeting location from the Westport (south) end of Blossom Road.        
 
Walk as far as you want or stay with walk leaders for the entire, approximately 4 1/2 mile, walk. Wear appropriate shoes/boots for walking early spring trails. 

Rain cancels walk. 

One of the first migrants to return as spring approaches is the inquisitive and friendly eastern phoebe.

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INFO ALERT - This first week of spring 2022, what have you been seeing?

New arrivals appearing daily. Here are a few we noticed:
 

Eastern garter snakes are now out basking on sunny mornings.
All winter they have been communally hibernating in rock piles and crevices, under stonewalls, in wood and stump piles and underground in animal burrows. 



Many of our earliest spring yard and garden flowers are native to Europe and Asia. Various scilla species naturalize easily and if open woodlands are nearby, the scilla may escape and go feral.



The cowbird is an invasive species in our New England neck of the woods. They were originally birds of the Great Plains where they followed huge herds of bison feeding on the insects and ticks that tormented the bison and on insects that the bison stirred up as they moved along on migration. With the near extinction of the bison, clearing of the great eastern forest and the appearance of farms and livestock, the cowbird switched from the fast disappearing bison to domestic cattle. Originally having to follow bison in order to survive, cowbirds evolved the strategy of laying their eggs in other birds nests and then quickly moving on. Nest parasitism enables the cowbird to have other species hatch their eggs and raise their young while they stay with the herd. In the early spring cowbirds return with the earliest spring migrants often arriving with the phoebes. 



Don't walk barefoot in the meadow. Invasive thistles are greening up and starting to grow.



It is early March and sunny. The temperature is just above freezing and off in the distance you hear a flock of ducks quacking loudly from a small forest pool. Carefully walking over you don't see any ducks, but you do see small tan frogs with black masks quaking away. Wood frogs are the first frogs out of hibernation in area woodlands.
 

 
 In early spring, March in southeastern New England, spotted turtles emerge from the mud and tangles of aquatic vegetation where they had brumated during the winter. Brumation is the cold-blooded reptilian equivalent to warm-blooded mammalian hibernation. 


Yarrow is a member of the aster family and starts growing in early March. Although it resembles some introduced species and consorts with a whole bunch of alien weeds, yarrow is a North American native. 



 

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