Wildlife & Weather

Wood ducks are actively looking for nesting sites in wooded wetland areas across the Northeast. Unlike the more familiar mallards or domestic ducks, wood ducks lay their eggs inside tree holes rather than in a nest on the ground. This give the eggs better protection from predators, but means the flightless ducklings have to take a blind leap out of the nest, plunging dozens of feet down to the ground or water below.
Late winter can be a tough time for birds. They’ve cleaned up most of the last year’s fruits and berries, but it’s still too cold for protein rich insects to be active. You can help out by planting trees and shrubs that provide winter fruit and shelter, such as winterberry holly, eastern red cedar, American holly, and hawthorn.
Gray whales are migrating up the Pacific Coast. These massive marine mammals are moving from their winter feeding grounds in Alaska to their spring calving grounds in Baja California. Roundtrip, it’s a 10,000 mile migration which is longer than any other mammal’s.
Monarch butterflies are on the move this week! After spending the last several months overwintering in the mountains of Mexico, monarchs have begun their northward migration. Over the course of four more generations they’ll spread across the entire eastern United States and southern Canada by mid-summer. If you live in southern Texas, you might just spot the first monarchs of the season in your neighborhood!