Visiting the Preserves

The bewildering systematics and semantics of Black Ratsnakes

A species full of peculiar and wonderful adaptations

North America has more than 4,000 species of wild native bees—more than twice the number of bird and mammal species combined.

There’s at least one ancient monster that is known to live in Cayuga Lake: the lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens).

What does it all mean? Why do birds sing? How? And how can we figure out who exactly is singing what?

Sometimes, the only warm-colored brushstrokes in this austere landscape are the maroon berry clusters of the staghorn sumac.

Unseen and deadly, ambush bugs are waiting. And they are everywhere.

They’re even more spectacular shapeshifters than our other local amphibians.

The Ruby-throated Hummingbird is much more than a charming little curiosity or a spark of glittering color.

Our local otter species is the North American river otter (Lontra canadensis).

The lowliest of critters play an indispensable role in sustaining nature.

We don’t know if trees share news about happy events, but they regularly warn each other about the imminent dangers of pests, herbivores, and drought.

The Land Trust is sustaining grassland habitat at several of its nature preserves.

These odd little balls that we see on goldenrod reveal a complex web of relationships.

In 1603, two ships set out from England to what is now Maine on the so-called Great Sassafras Hunts.

Many millennia have passed since North America was a true wilderness.

Nothing shines so brightly in the Finger Lakes as the fireflies, beetles of the family Lampyridae.

This story began many decades ago with an acorn falling to earth on Logan Hill.

The so-called “redwood of the East” was a keystone species and its loss changed the forests irreparably.

The luna moth is a living avatar of the moon—at rest by day, on the move by night, exquisitely pale, subtle yet spectacular.