Weekend Update |
Veteran of the Month Ceremony Korean War and Peacetime service Marine Sergeant Michael Edward Fitzgerald of Bethlehem was honored as the March 2010 Veteran of the Month at the Bantam Borough Hall. His Flag will fly at the All Wars Memorial until Saturday, April 3rd when it will be retired. Sergeant Fitzgerald’s honoring marks the 245th consecutive month that Post 44 has honored a deceased Veteran as the Veteran of the Month. See the Home & Family page for more details about Sergeant Michael Edward Fitzgerald.
Winter Wildlife Tracking Club Primitive skills and nature awareness instructor, Andrew Dobos, led a group on Saturday through forests and wetlands searching for animal tracks. They learned to read tracks and searched for signs of animal inhabitants.
A Horrible Bore: Asian Longhorned Beetle, Far East Invader
Rose Hiskes, a diagnostician and horticulturist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station discussed the Asian Longhorned Beetle (ALB) , a wood boring beetle that kills maples, birches, horse chestnut and elms among other trees. Maples are the preferred host be it sugar, red, Norway or silver. What would Connecticut look like without maples? What would pancakes be like without maple syrup? What would the effect on air, water and soil quality be if we lost millions of trees in our state? Worcester, MA lost 25,000 trees last winter due to the infestation of this beetle.
Satellite Tracking of Ducks and Geese Around the World
Did you know that the movements of geese from Greenland are currently being monitored via satellites at the Livingston Ripley Waterfowl Conservancy, right here in Litchfield? Dr. Sue Sheaffer presented an in-depth look at how satellite transmitters are used to monitor movements, distributions, and migrations of ducks and geese. State-of the-art technology combines tiny GPS receivers with satellite transmitters that are small enough to fit on the back of a duck. These transmitters provide daily locations of birds that can be used to chronicle migrations and identify the critical habitats used by birds anywhere they go. Sue presented slides from recent trips to Greenland and Ireland.
|
