“Plants are a lot like people—they have their redeeming qualities even when they’re hard to tolerate,” Tony Russell said as he gestured at an invasive vine winding its way up a willow oak tree. Russell is a member of the Virginia Master Naturalists, and has been an active volunteer with the Ivy Creek Foundation and […]
Archaeologists at James Madison’s Montpelier have spent the last three years excavating bits and pieces of the president’s world, searching for clues about his life on the plantation. A team led by archaeologist Dr. Matt Reeves—working with a grant from the National Endowment for Humanities for a study of slave communities—spent years digging up layers […]
Dave Hirschman and Laurel Woodworth are serious about their work with the Center for Watershed Protection, a national nonprofit with a mission to clean up and care for waterways in Virginia and beyond. But they try to bring a little levity to the job when they can. Hirschman, the director of CWP’s Charlottesville office, and […]
Those seeking guidance in the garden have a new resource at their fingertips: the Piedmont Virginia Native Plants Database, a searchable list of 341 native grasses, trees, and wildflowers, all found in the region before the arrival of European settlers, and all accompanied by information about [...]
On a slow September Saturday back in the early 1990s, Brenda Tekin took a drive up Afton Mountain in search of something to occupy her for the afternoon. She’d read about the Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch, a group of birders who kept tabs on migrants from the parking lot of the Inn at Afton each [...]
Each week, C-VILLE’s Green Scene page takes a look at local environmental news. The section’s bulletin board has information on local green events and keeps you up to date on statewide happenings. Got an event or a tip you’d like to see here and in the paper? Write us at news@c-ville.com. Night [...]
David Via’s first memories of mushroom hunting are from his Crozet childhood. His father—a descendant of early Blue Ridge settlers who grew up in a high hollow on Buck’s Elbow Mountain—would take him out hunting for morels each spring. They would follow the time-honored seasonal cues locals use [...]
Who doesn’t love looking out the kitchen window at all the feathered friends Central Virginia’s backyards have to offer? Unfortunately, due to declining grassland and shrubland areas in the region, a number of native Virginia bird species, like the bobolink and bobwhite quail, are in danger of [...]
Rob Springer has been climbing trees his whole life. As an arborist, he’s been doing it professionally for the last 30 years. A certified arborist with Bartlett Tree Experts, Springer was honored for his work earlier this month by the International Society of Arboriculture. The [...]
Each week, C-VILLE’s Green Scene page takes a look at local environmental news. The section’s bulletin board has information on local green events and keeps you up to date on statewide happenings. Got an event or a tip you’d like to see here and in the paper? Write us at [...]
Many undergraduate students aspiring to be full-fledged scientists find themselves facing a roadblock: They’re unable to tackle their own research until their graduate or postgraduate careers begin. But the National Science Foundation’s highly selective Research Experiences for Undergraduates [...]
As summer winds down, Charlottesville bird-lover Peggy Cornett gears up for the fall birding season, a rush of avian activity after the relative lull of June and July. Our sky will fill with migrating birds heading for warmer climates, and Cornett will be here, binoculars in hand, to count [...]
In the latest chapter of the debate between resource extraction and conservation, Virginia environmentalists are taking aim at a crop of legislation moving through the U.S. House of Representatives that they say would damage protected wilderness areas in Virginia and around the country. [...]
More than 4,000 miles away in Bristol Bay, Alaska, a Canadian mining company has been seeking the go-ahead to create North America’s biggest open-pit mine in a search for gold and copper. But the bay is also the site of the world’s largest sockeye salmon harvest. Forty million of the fish come [...]
The locavore craze is spreading, and fast. American agriculture has come under public scrutiny, and more and more people want to know the origin of the food on their plates. Central Virginia’s hunger for food produced sustainably and close to home is fed by scores of nearby farms, but Congress [...]