American Birding Association Field Guide to Birds of New York
The American Birding Association Field Guide to Birds of New York, featuring 285 species, stunning photos, and top birding hotspots.
Environment
All Stories
What’s killing red pines?
By Mike Lynch
Scientists are trying to find out what killed many of the red pines on the eastern edge of the Stephenson Range near Wilmington. Dozens of trees, perhaps hundreds, have died in recent years.
Boreas dam drives debate
The Adirondack Park Agency held public hearings on Boreas Ponds at eight different locations around the state in November and December. Hundreds of people spoke, offering a potpourri of opinions. But one constant was a sea of green T-shirts bearing the slogan “I Want Wilderness.”
Adirondack Wilderness Advocates Issues Boreas Analysis
By Phil Brown
Adirondack Wilderness Advocates has sent the Adirondack Park Agency a detailed paper, replete with photos, maps, and charts, arguing for a Wilderness classification for nearly all of the 20,758-acre Boreas Ponds Tract. The 46-page document also contains recommendations for several other lands recently added to the public Forest Preserve. The first half of the document…
How to save the world
Edward Wilson probably knows more about ants than any single person ever has—and perhaps ever will. But the study of ants, which he has been pursuing since he was a child in Alabama during the Great Depression, is only the beginning of this polymath’s prodigious appetite for understanding how our natural world works and what…
Bad News For Bears
By Mike Lynch
Bear encounters in the backcountry and in residential areas were much more common than usual during the summer of 2016 in the Adirondack Park.
On the law’s cutting edge
Protect the Adirondacks lawsuit could clarify state constitution’s mandate against destroying trees in the Forest Preserve. By PHIL BROWN A rose is a rose is a rose, Gertrude Stein said. Defining a tree is not so simple. That question—what is a tree?—has emerged as a central issue in a long-running dispute over the construction of…
Trails showing their age
By Mike Lynch
Observers say more money is needed to repair and maintain an antiquated network of hiking routes. By MIKE LYNCH When many of the High Peaks’ trails were cut more than a century ago, the work was done by guides and hired hands. Keene Valley’s Orson “Old Mountain” Phelps created the first trail up Mount Marcy in 1861; Verplanck Colvin’s survey workers cut routes up…
Heroes of the High Peaks
Book Review By PHILIP TERRIE From north to south, from east to west, the Adirondack Park is a spectacular place. We have vast expanses of intact forest, unpolluted lakes, and crystalline rivers with roiling whitewater. Everywhere you look, there’s something wonderful. But let’s face it: the High Peaks, especially that extraordinary environment on the alpine…
Back from the brink
Book Review By EDWARD KANZE We all see things differently. My distinguished writer friend the late Maurice Kenny and I argued on more than one occasion over what sorts of books we like. I provoked the debate, asserting that given a choice between a brilliantly written book with not much at its core and a…