Local Artists Showing Their Work at The Nature Museum
In the past year we have been showcasing different artists in the program room of the Nature Museum. Generous artists have loaned their beautiful work for a month or more so that they can share their work with museum visitors. We connected with many of these artists through our annual Nature Art Exhibition that we have put on for the past 4 winters. The variety of artistic talent has been wonderful. One of these artists is Don Pollica from Brattleboro who encouraged us to take a close look at Nature with his photographs. Mike Cheslock from Bellows Falls brought us work from other artists. He loaned us his collection of images painted on feathers collected from artists in Costa Rica. Cindy Hendrick, from Alstead New Hampshire, loaned us lovely and whimsical prints of her watercolor and pen and ink depictions of animals in storybook style. Last month brought us the work of Don Hofer from Ludlow, VT, whose pen and ink prints of a variety of domestic and wild animals made us smile. Our newest installation is the work of Cai Xi Silver whose landscape paintings grace our walls. You can find out more about Cai and the Asian Cultural Center of Vermont by going to their website www.cxsilvergallery.com We encourage anyone who is interested in a “solo show” to contact Betsy at 802-843-2111 or e-mail betsy@nature-museum.org to discuss the possibility of sharing art inspired by nature with our visitors.
Bat Portraits
The Museum has a new display of bat photographs that were taken by Merlin Tuttle of Bat Conservation International. There is one photograph of each of Vermont’s nine species of bats. Come and visit the Nature Museum and get face to face with out local bats.
The Carolina Parakeet
We may not be a giant museum, but we have a few specimens at The Nature Museum that I am particularly impressed by. One of them is the mounted specimen that we have of a Carolina Parakeet.
The Carolina Parakeet is an extinct species. It was a beautiful bird with emerald green, bright yellow and orange feathers. I can imagine the surprise of the early settlers of this country when they saw this bird flying in flocks through a snowstorm as far north as New York! The species was officially declared extinct in 1939 after fairly extensive searches for the bird in the swamps of Florida.
Carolina Parakeets preferred to live in mature bottomland forests and sycamore woodlands. They roosted and nested in old dead hollowed out trees. They lived all across the Eastern US from the Ohio Valley to the Gulf of Mexico, from New York to Florida.
The decline in their population is complicated. Over much of their range large areas of forest were cut down for agriculture. The colorful feathers were also in demand for ladies hats and some birds were taken from the wild and put into captivity. Some of the birds were also killed in large numbers because farmers considered them a pest because they ate fruit from farmer’s orchards and fields. An unfortunate behavior also added to their decline. When they flocked and some of the birds were killed they would circle back to that same spot and so more could be shot.
If you are interested in seeing the Carolina Parakeet, let us know when you visit the museum and we can get it from the collections in the basement and show you, or you may see it upstairs in the coming months in an Carolina Parakeet exhibit.
