Red-bellied woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus). Photo by David Noel Edwards.
West Stockbridge — Avian biologist Ben Nickley, president and government director of Berkshire Bird Observatory (BBO), will give a chat and slide presentation at Old Town Hall on Friday, March 15, 7 p.m., titled “The Birds in Our Hands: Berkshire Bird Observatory’s First Two Years of Conservation Science.” The discuss, co-sponsored by Friends of the West Stockbridge Library and the West Stockbridge Historical Society, will cowl normal details about avian ecology in addition to chicken banding particularly. Following the discuss will probably be a reception, the place you possibly can meet Mr. Nickley and change chicken geek greetings, calls, and arcana. Admission is free, however your RSVP is required.
Having run the BBO since founding it in 2022, Nickley will discuss concerning the organization’s mission, present analysis tasks, and plans for the longer term, aided by photos and tales from BBO’s pilot spring, summer season, and fall seasons at Jug End State Reservation.
If you will have by no means visited the Jug End space, that’s fantastic. I want to maintain it a secret. Because in spring and fall, its Technicolor landscapes resemble the Land of Oz. Located adjoining to Mount Everett State Reservation, the previous resort is well-known to chicken fanatics, as a result of it offers access to the Appalachian Trail, open fields with edge habitat, and hardwood forests—all prime habitat for warblers, tanagers, orioles, and different migrating species. It is an space wealthy in biodiversity, an early (1990) examine documenting 70 chicken species and 22 species of mammals. It is home to no less than three confirmed species of state-protected animals—one reptile, one amphibian, and one fish. As the crow flies, Jug End is just some miles from 213 acres of forested lands in Mt. Washington which are protected by The Nature Conservancy, Egremont Land Trust, the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, and the Department of Conservation and Recreation.
But Jug End is just one space the place Nickley has performed discipline work. He has studied all through North America—from the Southeast’s cypress swamps to the Sierra Nevada’s excessive meadows—all whereas attending faculty and ending graduate college. But his past love, he says, is the northeastern deciduous forest. He considers himself fortunate to have landed within the Berkshires and appreciates the help he receives from BBO’s father or mother organization Green Berkshires, which has been engaged in a four-year South Taconic biodiversity mapping venture. He earned his bachelor’s diploma in ecology and evolutionary biology from Ohio State University and his masters in biology from Virginia Commonwealth University. He has revealed articles within the journals Forest Ecology and Management; Behaviour; Wilson Journal of Ornithology; and (being keenly eager about wolf spiders) the Journal of Arachnology.
Ben’s private mission is to make sure the longevity of BBO as a social, scientific, and conservation establishment within the Berkshire area.
Hear Ben Nickley’s discuss and slide presentation, “The Birds in Our Hands: Berkshire Bird Observatory’s First Two Years of Conservation Science,” at Old Town Hall, 9 Main Street, West Stockbridge, on Friday, March 15, 7 p.m. RSVP on the West Stockbridge Historical Society’s website.
