📜 EwA Week Highlights: Scaleworts, Mergansers, & Chickadee Brains

[Mike McGlathery]

EwA Highlights February 22, 2025 Hello everyone,  Thanks for reading the February 22nd EwA highlights. A combination of frigid temperatures and crusty, icy conditions made for a relatively quiet week for us on iNaturalist. 📸 Kay observed this scalewort (genus Frullania) at Horn Pond this past weekend. Scaleworts are a type of liverwort (div. Marchantiophyta), and as I've said previously in these highlights, the liverworts comprise one of the oldest lineages of land plants. The evolution of liverworts predates the occurrence of complex leaf vasculature. One of the most common scaleworts around New England is the New York scalewort (Frullania eboracensis), but the species sometimes requires a microscope to properly identify. I believe this is Kay’s first appearance in our highlights - welcome, Kay! EwA iNaturalist Record (© Kay Roth · Woburn, MA · Feb.15, 2025)  In case this week’s harsh temperatures didn’t sufficiently remind you: it’s a titanic task for many animals to survive through the winter. Especially for smaller animals like songbirds, it can be hard for me to imagine how they manage to survive months of frigid temperatures and food scarcity. That’s because many of them don’t survive this brutal season, but the ones who do make use of some incredible adaptations. Take the black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus), for example. Areas of their brain grow dramatically in preparation for the winter so that they can remember the myriad spots that they cached food in the preceding months. (I wrote about this phenomenon a few years ago in a seasonal almanac on EwA’s website.) This photo was snapped by Simon.  EwA iNaturalist Record (© Simon Gurvets · Woburn, MA · Feb. 15, 2025)  EwA’s most observed species this week was the red-breasted merganser (Mergus serrator). This species is a classic example of a bird named for a trait that’s not readily apparent and is only prominent at a certain time of year on one sex. You can maybe see a glimpse of the male’s red breast in this photo, but I think the color of its eye is much more striking. EwA iNaturalist Record (© Bill MacIndewar · Boston, MA · Feb. 15, 2024)  📊 Thanks to everyone for your great biodiversity records this week, totaling 129 observations of 75 distinct species. If you’re curious about the records from this week that have been validated by the iNat community so far, you can find them » here. 🏆 Running tally: To date, we have recorded 224,694 observations of 12,290 distinct species! Check out our EwA umbrella project, see the details per site/observer, and more » here. 📅 EwA Upcoming Public Events Ewa Field Events » Check the EwA Winter [ Event details and registration » ] Don’t miss some great opportunities to follow the rhythm of the season in our local habitats and in the local wildlife! Space is limited for all our field events. Wildlife ethics is important to us and we seek to avoid putting the pressure on natural habitats which large gatherings unavoidably do. We are asking our audience to register-and-commit (or cancel when you know you can’t come) to avoid no-shows. EwA Fieldwork (and Resources) It’s a great time to join our monitoring programs. Check EwA’s Volunteer Program Calendar 📅  to know when things happen. And if a session is of interest to you, don’t hesitate to reach out to get the rendezvous location. 📅 EwA Sites Map | 🌱 Site Protocols and Guides · Field Rosters · Field Notes » All here! | ℹ️ More about EwA’s Citizen Science Program » Here ❓ Do you have any questions? Don’t be shy. Just email me or reply to this thread.  That’s all for this week—hope you have a good one! -Mike