Farmscape Ecology Program

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Farmscape Ecology Program

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Multidisciplinary research and outreach program looking at ecology and cultural relationships to land in Columbia County New York.

Website: http://hvfarmscape.org

Blog: http://hvfarmscape.wordpress.com/

10/10/2026

Farmscape Wonder Wander: 9 October 2026

A Visit to Thompson Pond

by Kendrick Fowler

Yesterday, I took the warm weather as an opportunity to explore The Nature Conservancy’s Thompson Pond Preserve in Pine Plains, NY. I’ve been meaning to visit Thompson Pond ever since I learned of its existence last October, when I hiked to the fire tower on top of the neighboring Stissing Mountain for the first time. Although it took me almost a year to make my way back, I couldn’t have picked a better day to do so…not only because of the beautiful weather, but also because I was lucky enough to catch my first-ever sightings of some spectacular creatures during my adventure! Read on to find out who I saw!

10/02/2026

Wonder Wander: 2 October 2026
By Josie

This week at Farmscape, we had a very special visitor, moss whisperer and northern forest ecologist, Jerry Jenkins. The purpose of his visit was to study forest mosses and discuss a study design for incorporating them into our Ancient Forest Project. We did a field trip to some forest along the Taconic Ridge and found familiar moss faces and a nice suite of liverworts, one of which is described as an old forest indicator. This week’s post will be an appreciation of liverworts, an even more overlooked group of plants than mosses.

09/28/2026

Farmscape Wonder Wander: 28 September 2026
By Anna

There was perfect sunny, cool fall weather for this Wonder Wander done just after the autumn equinox (and posted a little late, my apologies). My eye was drawn to all the birds and insects partaking in the bounty of this time of year. View the photos and read the captions to follow along.

09/18/2026

Farmscape Wonder Wander: 18 September 2026

Hello! My name is Aliza, I’m an intern for this fall season, and this is my first Wonder Wander. On Wednesday I joined Kyle at the Forge Project site and took pictures of all the insects that struck my fancy. It is a little bee and wasp biased, but I tried to include a variety of creatures.

09/11/2026

Farmscape Wonder Wander: 11 September 2026
By Laura

I recently attended the Eagle Hill Institute in Steuben, Maine, to take a week-long course led by Charley Eiseman on insect tracks and signs. Charley is a freelance naturalist and coauthor of Tracks & Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates, and has been intensively studying leafminers—the moths, flies, beetles, and sawflies whose larvae tunnel into plant tissue to feed. Using Charley’s e-book, Leafminers of North America, I was able to identify some of the leafminers around the Creekhouse garden and adjacent forest. These are native insects that have coevolved with their host plants, and while they may damage individual leaves they don’t negatively impact the overall plant.

09/05/2026

Farmscape Wonder Wander: 4 September 2026

A Trio of Exceptional Wasps

By Kendrick Fowler

Over the past few years, Martin Van Buren National Historic Site has been working to install a small Apple orchard next to Lindenwald, the historic home of President Martin Van Buren, as part of an effort to restore the character of the site’s landscape to more closely resemble how it would have appeared in Van Buren’s time (https://home.nps.gov/articles/000/martin-van-buren-nhs-orchard-rehabilitation-project.htm). In conjunction with that work, Farmscape’s insect team (including myself) have been monitoring the orchard’s insect biodiversity to explore how the site’s insect community develops over time, and in the course of doing so we have found some exceptional creatures. Read on to see just a few of them!

08/29/2026

Please join us for a free Old Growth Forest talk by author Joan Maloof. The talk will be this coming Monday evening at 6:30pm in the Learning Center at Hawthrone Valley.

For more details about Joan, see https://www.joanmaloof.com/; for more details about the talk, see https://hvfarmscape.org/event/what-makes-old-growth-forests-special-and-how-to-save-them/

08/28/2026

Farmscape Wonder Wander: 25 June 2026

By Nathaniel Wallsten

For my final wonder wander as an entomology intern at FEP, I decided to explore the Hawthorne Valley Farm corner garden with Laura. I was hoping to find interesting insects considered to be agricultural beneficials or pests, and I was not disappointed! As I explored and researched, I was reminded that not every insect's role could be boiled down to solely “pest” or “beneficial” and that even insects considered pests play a role in the agricultural landscape.

08/21/2026

Farmscape Wonder Wander: 21 August 2026

By Maryann Fuentes

For my last Wonder Wander, I had the pleasure of joining Kyle on a walk while he conducted a pollinator survey at Overmountain Conservation Area in Ancramdale. He spent the afternoon surveying the pollinator strip near the trail while I observed some of the lovely insects that could be found nearby and within the pollinator strip.

08/14/2026

Wonder Wander: 14 August 2026
By Jesse Vanston

As the (academic) summer is coming to a close and we interns are mournfully starting to wrap up our time here at the Farmscape Ecology Program, I’ve been spending time reflecting on things I’ve learned and what I’m curious about exploring further down the line. Of course, botany and entomology are both subjects I plan to continue pursuing, however, there is one thing that has stuck out to me above all else this summer…and that is the gall.

Address

1075 Harlemville Road
Ghent, NY
12075

Telephone

+15186727994

Website

http://hvfarmscape.org/

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