The FWP weekly digest of wondrous wildlife happenings
and other interesting items from the natural world

Creatures to meet | Things to learn
Things to do

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Lisa S. French
Fox
Because It Is Autumn

From October, by Robert Walser:

…you walk across
a meadow and then enter the forest,
which is so bright and sunny,
it makes you happy, and quiet
and louder and clearer thoughts
pass through your soul.
Isn’t something spirited, soulful
walking around in this peaceful realm?
I’ve always been calm in autumn,
believed in it, like a symbol of luck,
and looked up at the sky with extreme
joy and all around at life
that then seemed almost exalted…

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Beach Rose
Earth and the Reweaving

On this together-apart day of planet appreciation, beautifully inspiriting words from Rilke’s Book of Hours:

And yet if Earth needed to
she could weave us together like roses
and make of us a garland.

Because she’s good like that.

When we take care of her, she takes care of us.

Until the reweaving, wishing you a peaceful and restorative Earth Day.

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Birds on Broadway - Cormorant
Broadway Birds

They’re here! Really big birds have landed on Broadway courtesy of Brooklyn-based artist Nicolas Holiber and the Audubon Sculpture Project. Perched between 64th and 157th street on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the super-sized sculptures made from reclaimed wood found on New York City streets depict birds that either live in or migrate through Manhattan. This conservation art initiative was conceived to draw attention to the fact that nearly half of the birds in North America will be impacted by climate change, including the handsome double-crested cormorant above, currently spreading its wooden wings at 105th street. While the double-crested cormorant is a highly adaptable species found on coastal and inland waters, it is not certain that it will be able to adjust to the northward shift into the climate space of the boreal forest of Canada that is predicted to occur by 2080 at current rates of warming.

You can visit the double-crested cormorant on Broadway along with other New York native birds including the hooded merganser, snowy owl, and red-necked grebe now through January 2020. And if you’d like to see a real live cormorant clan doing their swooping, swimming, diving, fishing thing, be sure to swing by the Central Park Reservoir. For the love of all birds, you can help keep the beaked beauties of New York and North America flying by supporting the work of the National Audubon Society year round. And wherever you are in the world, you can get a bird’s-eye view of their daily happenings courtesy of the Audubon bird cams.

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Snoring Tadpoles

When you need a little break from the hurly-burly of daily duties, what could be more calming than the soft, snuffling sounds of hibernating tadpoles? Take a trek to the frozen north of Norway and have a listento the drip, plop, drip of melting snow and snoozing sounds of future frogs with BBC Radio 3 – Slow radio.

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Whale Carols

If you’ve run through every single holiday tune on this list of 100, and you’re still looking for a little extra jingle, why not press play on some sea mammal melodies—the soul-stirring songs of the humpback whale. While both male and female humpbacks vocalize, it’s the male of the species that emits the louder, more complex, whistles, clicks, calls, and trills either solo or in pairs with other males. Researchers aren’t exactly certain why whales, which are the largest animals on earth, sing. Studies suggest that the musical sounds of varying frequency made by some types of baleen whales, including the humpback, minke, blue and bowhead, may be used to communicate, navigate, and locate food. Unlike some mammals, baleen whales don’t have vocal cords. Their awe-inspiring songs appear to be produced through folds of tissue in the larynx. If you are wondering about the average length of a humpback whale vocalization, these cetacean’s songs can range from six to thirty-five minutes.

We sing to communicate, to raise spirits, to show love and caring—to connect. If you listen closely it’s easy to believe that whales do too. However you find your holiday groove this season, we wish you a whale of a time.

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