Unitarian Church in Fall River

03/23/2026

Spring has sprung! 🌷With the start of spring comes the arrival of fragrant and colorful flowers, like the tulip! This vibrant blossom is a member of the Liliaceae family, which also includes lilies. The tulip is a bulbiferous plant, meaning its organs are stored within a bulb underground, from which the main stem and flower emerges. Do you have a favorite spring flower?

Photo: lauraseidanova, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist

03/23/2026

Avast

03/23/2026

03/23/2026

You've got a rodent problem. Voles in the garden. Mice in the garage. And four different raptors patrol your neighborhood every day looking for exactly those animals.

They're flying over your yard because there's nowhere to land.

Raptors hunt from elevated perches. They scan open ground for movement, then dive. A fence is too low. Dense tree canopy blocks the sightline. Without a clear perch overlooking open ground, they hunt your neighbor's yard instead.

One tall post changes the equation.

A Red-tailed Hawk hunts from an eight-foot perch during the day, scanning a wide zone and taking voles, mice, and rats. A kestrel — North America's smallest falcon — works dawn and dusk shifts from the same post, specializing in voles and grasshoppers. A Barred Owl takes the night shift, hunting by sound in total darkness. Same post, different hours, around-the-clock coverage.

The whole project takes twenty minutes.

🌿 The raptor perch:

Set a post eight to twelve feet high in an open area of your yard — a four-by-four lumber post, a tall dead branch, or a stake with a crossbar on top

Place it where rodent habitat meets open ground — the edge of a garden bed, the border between lawn and meadow, or near the compost area

A flat crossbar or wide top gives a stable landing platform — raptors need a few inches of surface to perch comfortably

Mount a kestrel nest box at six feet on the same post and add the perch crossbar at ten feet — you get a resident falcon and visiting hawks on one structure

Open sightlines matter more than location — don't place it under tree canopy where the strike angle is blocked

One post. No poison. No traps. No monthly bill.

The pest control was already flying overhead. It just needed a place to land 🌿

03/23/2026

Hello. I'm the bird you hear every single morning and have never seen.

From the thicket. From the brush pile. From the dense tangle at the back of your yard where the blackberry and honeysuckle form a wall. A clear ringing song — two short notes and a buzzy trill. Over and over. Starting before seven AM and continuing until you leave for work.

You've heard it a hundred times this spring and you've never once located the singer because I don't come out.

I'm an Eastern Towhee. And I live at ground level, in the dark, in the tangles you can't see into.

I'm bigger than you'd expect for a bird you've never seen. Larger than a sparrow, close to a robin in size. The male is striking — jet black hood, rufous flanks, white belly, red eyes. The female is warm brown where the male is black, same rusty sides, same red eyes. We look like birds that should be obvious. We're not. Because we never leave cover.

I eat on the ground. I jump forward with both feet and rake backward to flip leaf litter — a loud double-kick scratch that sounds like a chipmunk or a squirrel rummaging. In quiet woods you can hear me working the leaf litter from across the yard. That scratching in the brush pile isn't a rodent. It's me.

My nest is on the ground or within inches of it. Hidden under a shrub, a fallen branch, or a dense vine. If a predator approaches, the female runs through the leaf litter with her tail dragging — a distraction display that mimics a rodent and draws the predator away from the nest.

I need one thing from your yard that most yards don't have. A messy edge. Brush piles, dense shrubs, deep leaf litter, tangled undergrowth. The moment you clean it up, I leave. I can't live in a landscaped yard. I need the part you've been meaning to tidy.

🐦 How to find the towhee you've been hearing:

- Listen for the drink-your-tea song from any dense thicket or brush edge — two short notes followed by a buzzy trill. Once you learn it you'll hear it everywhere and realize you've been hearing it for years
- Don't look in the canopy — look at the base of dense shrubs and brush piles. Towhees stay within a few feet of the ground and rarely perch in the open
- The loud scratching sound from leaf litter under shrubs is the easiest way to locate one without seeing it. Stand still near a brush edge and listen for the raking
- A brush pile left at the back of your yard is towhee habitat. Dense shrubs with leaf litter underneath are towhee habitat. The messy corner you've been planning to clean is towhee habitat
- If you hear the song every morning from the same spot, a pair is nesting nearby — the nest is on or near the ground within the densest cover available

Every time you hear that song this spring, a bird chose your yard because it's messy enough to hide in. That's not a complaint. That's a compliment 🌿

03/23/2026

For the first time, scientists have captured high-speed video showing trees emitting a faint, electrical glow during thunderstorms. This extraordinary phenomenon, filmed in the Blue Ridge Mountains by researchers from Penn State University, reveals that trees can generate sparks in strong electric fields without being struck by lightning. The effect, known as corona discharge, produces a blue glow at the tips of branches and leaves. It occurs when the storm’s electric field is strong enough to ionize air molecules near the sharp edges of trees, causing electrons to move and emit energy in a plasma form. Unlike lightning, corona discharge is “cool” electricity, producing light without heat or damage to the tree.

This discovery not only offers a mesmerizing visual but also highlights the broader environmental impact of forests. The corona discharges generate hydroxyl radicals, key molecules that help clean the atmosphere by breaking down pollutants and greenhouse gases like methane. This suggests that forests may play a more significant role in maintaining the Earth’s electrical balance and reducing greenhouse gas concentrations than previously recognized.

The intensity of the glow varies among tree species and is influenced by factors such as canopy size and leaf shape. Evergreen conifers, with their pointed needle-like leaves, are particularly efficient at concentrating the electric field, producing brighter glows compared to broadleaf trees. Over time, as trees grow, their corona activity can increase, further enhancing their atmospheric impact.

Historically, sailors have observed similar glowing effects on ship masts during storms, but only now has modern technology confirmed the phenomenon in natural forested environments. By combining high-speed cameras and sensitive sensors, researchers have captured a visual testament to the hidden electrical activity of trees, providing a new perspective on the dynamic interactions between vegetation and the atmosphere. This study not only deepens our understanding of thunderstorms but also emphasizes the importance of forests in sustaining Earth’s environmental and atmospheric health.

03/23/2026

Spring has sprung!

Spring is a season of renewal, bringing warmer temperatures, new life, and vibrant splashes of color across the landscape. As winter fades, many of us head out to explore and enjoy the great outdoors. Experience spring in a national park near you, in your own community, or stay connected with parks virtually all season long.

Spring over to: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/npscelebrates/spring-season.htm

Image: Bluebonnet flower in the Texas Hill Country at Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park.

03/23/2026

Your yard has a security system. Right now, at least four species in your backyard are monitoring for predators — and they're all listening to each other.

Every bird and mammal within earshot is eavesdropping on alarm calls from species they've never interacted with, decoding threat level, size, and direction from sounds they didn't make.

The Carolina Chickadee is the encoder. Her signature chick-a-dee-dee-dee call isn't just a name — it's a data transmission. She adds more dee notes based on how dangerous the predator is. A large slow-moving hawk gets two or three dees. A small fast owl that can actually catch a chickadee gets ten or more. Every bird within range decodes this instantly. Nuthatches, titmice, warblers, and sparrows all adjust their behavior based on the number of dees in a call they didn't make.

The Blue Jay is the perimeter alarm. She can mimic the scream of a red-tailed hawk well enough to trigger a freeze response in every small bird nearby. She uses it when she spots a real threat — a cat, a Cooper's Hawk, a snake near a nest. The yard goes silent almost instantly. Every feeder empties. Every ground bird freezes.

The Eastern Chipmunk covers the ground. He produces two completely different alarm calls depending on threat type. A rapid high-pitched chipping signals a ground predator — cat, snake, weasel. A long trill signals an aerial threat — hawk overhead. Ground-feeding birds, rabbits, and other chipmunks respond to the correct call without looking up to verify. The chipmunk already told them where the danger is.

The American Crow runs the response team. Crows don't just warn — they attack. When one crow spots a hawk, owl, or cat, she gives a specific mobbing call that recruits every crow within earshot. They converge, dive-bomb, and harass the predator until it leaves. They also remember individual predator faces — including human faces — and pass that information to crows who never saw the original encounter.

These four systems run simultaneously all day. The chickadee broadcasts threat level. The jay triggers lockdown. The chipmunk identifies ground versus sky. The crows handle enforcement. Every other species in your yard — robins, sparrows, cardinals, rabbits — benefits from this network without producing a single alarm call of their own.

🐦 How to hear the security system:

- Watch your feeders when a cat walks through the yard. The jay screams, every bird vanishes, and the feeders stay empty for minutes. That silence is the system working

- Listen for the chickadee's dee count. A relaxed chick-a-dee-dee means low alert. A rapid string of six or more dees means something small and dangerous is nearby — look for a small owl or a shrike

- When you hear a chipmunk chipping from the ground, check what direction he's facing. He's staring directly at the threat. His body is a compass needle pointing at danger

- If several crows suddenly converge on one tree screaming, look in that tree. There's almost certainly a hawk or owl sitting there trying to wait them out

The network is already running. Step outside. Wait for the first alarm. Follow it 🌿

03/23/2026

Happy Pi Day! Such a spectacular plant! - Joe-Pye W**d - A Monarch favorite! 📸 Image by Wild Ones Western Pennsylvania Area