Welcome!

Hello and welcome to "A Vinyl County Almanac!"

I am a wildlife technician and nature writer who grew up in Connecticut and currently lives and works in southern New England. I am interested in the ecology of human-dominated landscapes, especially those along the eastern coast of the United States where I have spent most of my life. 

The eastern United States, especially the area around the I-95 corridor, is a fascinating ecological paradox. On the one the hand, the region is full of people - all of the top five most densely populated states (New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maryland) are in New England and the Midatlantic. And yet, since the mass abandonment of agricultural land in the early twentieth century, forests have grown back to cover a not insignificant percentage of the land, with even densely populated states like Connecticut and Rhode Island having about 50% of their total land area covered by highly fragmented forests. 




United States forest cover (1) 

The result is a landscape in which human beings and the more-than-human world are constantly interacting in interesting ways. It's a place where modern ideas about the proper separation between the neighborhood and the wild were shaped and where they are now routinely challenged by goose poop and hungry bears; a place where every woodlot is a page in a great book of human and geological history; a place where against all odds, an amazing community of organisms has struggled, thrived, invaded, disappeared, and survived in ecosystems that have changed dramatically several times in the last 300 years and are still in flux today. 

The title of this blog refers both to the synthetic material used in the countless buildings and houses that dominate the I-95 corridor and to wildlife biologist Aldo Leopold's famous book A Sand County Almanac. In his Almanac, Leopold takes the reader through a year in the ecology of his family's farm property near Baraboo, Wisconsin. In doing so, he explores the unique beauty of a place which he is particularly attached to while also relating his own local observations to larger ideas about ecology and conservation. My goal in this blog is to try and apply a similar format to exploring the too-often ignored, human-dominated "wilds" of the eastern United States. 

Most of my posts to this blog will be in the form of brief field notes, in which I report on some organism or phenomenon that I found while working or exploring. These will typically include pictures (either my own if I can get good ones or somebody else's if not), as well as facts about the organism or phenomenon in question and perhaps some discussion of how it relates to larger ecological concepts or issues. In addition, I may occasionally write posts in the following forms:

    1.) Series - These will include groups of posts connected by a particular theme. I wanted to take some time to get my feet beneath me before jumping into these, but I'll be starting soon with my first one on city plants (and then promptly taking a break from it when the growing season ends). I will then probably start a couple more during the winter, including series on wild canines and the relationship between philosophy and science.

    2.) Tangents - In addition to ecology, I am also interested in a lot of other things and I may occasionally post about those. So, if you are mostly here for the natural history and I make a post about philosophy or banjo music or Star Wars or something, don't worry - we'll be back to bugs soon!

So yeah - I think that's about it! Welcome again and thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy!


Photo Credits:

(1) "Where the Trees Are" by Josef Kellndorfer and Wayne Walker (CC BY 2.0)


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