Valley Notebook

I

t’s a great time to be a born naturalist!

Put it this way. In the simple act of documenting the natural history of Edgewood Blue over the past forty years – the birds of the air, the amphibians in the pond, the beavers who maintain the pond, the springs that feed it – I’ve been accorded a ringside seat to the ecological impacts of the Climate Crisis in its opening days – such a time as humankind has likely never witnessed before and (the world being what it is) is unlikely ever to witness again.

How lucky is that.

cloudy sky by Trevor Goward

This web page is intended to serve as repository to natural history observations in the Clearwater Valley north of Spahats Creek. More broadly, it proposes to bear witness to a valley in ecological upheaval: an exercise of value both in its own right, as a means of “being home” in a home place now in process of becoming other, and more pragmatically, to stay alert to potentially dangerous trends it would be better to know about sooner than later.

To get the ball rolling (and when I find time!) I’ll populate this page with key items taken from my own observations in and around Edgewood Blue. These observations with be ranged under four headings: Data, Diary, Anecdotes and Inferences.

  • Data is for variables that can be numerically measured, like snow depth, temperature or precipitation.
  • Diary is for day to day observations including, say, like bird sightings and the dates the berries come ripe. In the longer time, I’d like to highlight observations by the valley’s first naturalists, like Ralph Ritcey and Bob & Hettie Miller.
  • Anecdotes is for the telling of short stories organized by category, e.g., plants, mammals, birds, etc..
  • Inferences is for recording recent or ongoing trends and patterns that may be worth tending to.

Once Valley Notebook is fully up and running, I’ll reach out to valley residents and others who may (or may not) wish to bolster it with observations of their own.

Be welcome.

THIS SITE IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION AND WELCOMES VOLUNTEERS TO HELP ASSEMBLE ITS DISPARATE CONTENTS.

Next up: The Land Conservancy