This Week at Hilton Pond

Bill Hilton Jr.
Executive Director
Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History
York , South Carolina 29745 USA

Midwinter Window Birds (22-31 January 2007)

What could be more satisfying than sitting in front of a big picture window with a view of backyard birds coming and going? In the Carolina Piedmont, we watch birds a lot and sometimes even try to photograph them. The fruits of our recent efforts make up the photo essay for "This Week at Hilton Pond."

To read about "Midwinter Window Birds," please visit the installment for 22-31 January 2007 at http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek070122.html . And don't forget to scroll down after the photo essay for an account of birds banded and recaptured during the week, PLUS a nature note about an out-of-season encounter with a critter on the road in front of Hilton Pond.

Figure 1. Northern Cardinals, in which healthy males show brilliant red plumage (above), are common midwinter feeder birds across most of the eastern U.S. and even southern Canada . (Photograph copyright Bill Hilton Jr.)

Shade-grown Coffee: Doing It The “Right Way ” (1-7 February 2007)

Drink coffee? Even if you don't, have you ever wondered how coffee growing in Central America might affect bird watching in your own backyard in the U.S. or Canada ? Do you know what folks mean when they talk about "shade-grown" vs. "sun-grown" coffee? Coffee--and birds and orchids and butterflies and sustainable farming--are all covered in the 1-7 February 2007 edition of "This Week at Hilton Pond." (The photo essay really should be called "This Week at Finca Cristina," an environmentally friendly organic coffee farm in Costa Rica that's doing shade-grown coffee the "right way.")

To learn more about one tropical farm's efforts to help "our" birds as well as their own, visit the current installment at http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek070201.html . It's an essay with LOTS of photos of Costa Rican flora, fauna, and habitats, so be patient if it takes a while to load; if the site's busy, please bookmark it and come back later. (Next month we'll report on our just-completed hummingbird research expedition in another part of Costa Rica .)

Figure 2. Coffee, when shade-grown, can be “environmentally friendly,” allowing coffee trees to co-exist with native tropical organisms such as bromeliads (above), orchids, butterflies, and a host of other plants and animals. (Photograph copyright Bill Hilton Jr.)

To help support the education, research, and conservation work of Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History, please see http://www.hiltonpond.org/FundingMain.html . Editor