Environment

With its glorious pink and white blossoms and thumb-sized pouches, this orchid is perhaps the most exquisite of all our wildflowers.

In “Flight of the Bumblebee” Don Scallen says we owe a debt of gratitude to pollinating insects for keeping food on the tables of the human race!

It’s called community-based planning, and with it citizens hope to shape a sustainable future in the hills.

An American town in the Brazilian jungle, J. Paul Getty and Mark Twain. Miscellany from Douglas G. Pearce’s Countryside Digest.

Headwaters Sketchbook — Cicadas buzz-saw through the silence of a sweltering August mid-afternoon.

Cecropia moths: Strange and wonderful phantoms of the twilight world.

Lured by warm weather and a bonanza of insects, warblers return from tropical realms. By Don Scallen.

The mellifluous trilling of toads resonates through our hills at this time of year. The tranquil sound wafting through an open window on a warm mid-spring eve is delightful.

On warm evenings in April and May our hills awaken to the life affirming voices of spring peepers. Their shrill calls stir the winter weary soul.

Don Scallen introduces us to three species of salamanders that are starting to appear in our hills. The first half of April is salamander time in our hills.

Should the Greenbelt be expanded? The central purpose of the plan is to protect farmland and environmentally sensitive land on the urban fringe.

In recent years farmers have been subjected to a plethora of regulations related to environmental protection and food safety. Has the pendulum swung too far?