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Bontecou Lake
Bontecou Lake, also known as Tamarack Swamp, is a shallow, man-made bifurcation lake in the towns of Stanford, New York, Stanford and Washington, New York, Washington, in Dutchess County, New York, less than from the Millbrook, New York, Village of Millbrook. Bontecou Lake straddles the drainage divide between the Wappinger Creek watershed to the west and the Ten Mile River (Housatonic River tributary), Tenmile River. Published estimates of its area vary between and , placing it among the largest lakes in Dutchess County. The lake and surrounding land were protected as a nature preserve in 2022. History and geography Bontecou Lake was created on the property of Rally Farms, founded by Frederic H. Bontecou (who would later be elected a state senator) in 1926. As the farm became renowned for its American Angus, Angus cattle herd, water demands increased. Around 1956, responding to severe drought, Bontecou worked with the Dutchess County Soil and Water Conservation District to const ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamarack
''Larix laricina'', commonly known as the tamarack, hackmatack, eastern larch, black larch, red larch, or American larch, is a species of larch native to Canada, from eastern Yukon and Inuvik, Northwest Territories east to Newfoundland, and also south into the upper northeastern United States from Minnesota to Cranesville Swamp, West Virginia; there is also an isolated population in central Alaska. The word ''akemantak'' is an Algonquian name for the species and means "wood used for snowshoes". Description ''Larix laricina'' is a small to medium-size boreal coniferous and deciduous tree reaching tall, with a trunk up to diameter. Tamaracks and larches (''Larix'' species) are deciduous conifers. The bark is tight and flaky, pink, but under flaking bark it can appear reddish. The leaves are needle-like, short, light blue-green, turning bright yellow before they fall in the autumn, leaving the pale pinkish-brown shoots bare until the next spring. The needles are produced spi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earthen Dam
An embankment dam is a large artificial dam. It is typically created by the placement and compaction of a complex semi-plastic mound of various compositions of soil or rock. It has a semi-pervious waterproof natural covering for its surface and a dense, impervious core. This makes the dam impervious to surface or seepage erosion. Such a dam is composed of fragmented independent material particles. The friction and interaction of particles binds the particles together into a stable mass rather than by the use of a cementing substance. Types Embankment dams come in two types: the earth-filled dam (also called an earthen dam or terrain dam) made of compacted earth, and the rock-filled dam. A cross-section of an embankment dam shows a shape like a bank, or hill. Most have a central section or core composed of an impermeable material to stop water from seeping through the dam. The core can be of clay, concrete, or asphalt concrete. This type of dam is a good choice for sites wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. The term ''Milky Way'' is a translation of the Latin ', from the Greek ('), meaning "milky circle". From Earth, the Milky Way appears as a band because its disk-shaped structure is viewed from within. Galileo Galilei first resolved the band of light into individual stars with his telescope in 1610. Until the early 1920s, most astronomers thought that the Milky Way contained all the stars in the Universe. Following the 1920 Great Debate between the astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis, observations by Edwin Hubble showed that the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy with an estimated D25 isophotal diameter of , but only about 1,000 light years thick at the spiral arms (more at the bulg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galactic Plane
The galactic plane is the plane on which the majority of a disk-shaped galaxy's mass lies. The directions perpendicular to the galactic plane point to the galactic poles. In actual usage, the terms ''galactic plane'' and ''galactic poles'' usually refer specifically to the plane and poles of the Milky Way, in which Planet Earth is located. Some galaxies are irregular and do not have any well-defined disk. Even in the case of a barred spiral galaxy like the Milky Way, defining the galactic plane is slightly imprecise and arbitrary since the stars are not perfectly coplanar. In 1959, the IAU defined the position of the Milky Way's north galactic pole as exactly RA = , Dec = in the then-used B1950 epoch; in the currently-used J2000 epoch, after precession is taken into account, its position is RA , Dec . This position is in Coma Berenices, near the bright star Arcturus; likewise, the south galactic pole lies in the constellation Sculptor. The "zero of longitude" of galactic coor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scenic Hudson
Scenic Hudson is a non-profit environmental organization in New York that protects land, creates, and enhances parks, and advocates for environmentally responsible policies and development practices. History Scenic Hudson was founded as the Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference on November 8, 1963, when Hudson Valley residents organized to save Storm King Mountain from being transformed into a pumped-storage hydroelectric plant. The organization successfully mounted the Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission court case, which saved the mountain and, for the first time, gave U.S. citizens legal standing to challenge development proposals on environmental grounds. Known as "The Scenic Hudson Decision," the case became a cornerstone of environmental law in the United States, and is widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement. After the Storm King Mountain case, Scenic Hudson gained more visibility. It began working with other local c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conservation Easement
In the United States, a conservation easement (also called conservation covenant, conservation restriction or conservation servitude) is a power invested in a qualified private land conservation organization (often called a "land trust") or government (municipal, county, state or federal) to constrain, as to a specified land area, the exercise of rights otherwise held by a landowner so as to achieve certain conservation purposes. It is an interest in real property established by agreement between a landowner and land trust or unit of government. The conservation easement "runs with the land", meaning it is applicable to both present and future owners of the land. The grant of conservation easement, as with any real property interest, is part of the chain of title for the property and is normally recorded in local land records. The conservation easement's purposes will vary depending on the character of the particular property, the goals of the land trust or government unit, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eastern Bluebird
The eastern bluebird (''Sialia sialis'') is a small North American migratory thrush found in open woodlands, farmlands, and orchards. The bright-blue breeding plumage of the male, easily observed on a wire or open perch, makes this species a favorite of birders. The male's call includes sometimes soft warbles of ' or ', or the melodious song '. It is the state bird of Missouri and New York. Taxonomy The eastern bluebird was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his ''Systema Naturae'' under the binomial name ''Motacilla sialis''. The type location is South Carolina. Linnaeus based his short Latin description on the earlier more detailed descriptions by the English naturalists Mark Catesby and George Edwards. The eastern bluebird is now placed in the genus '' Sialia'' that was introduced by the English naturalist William John Swainson in 1827 with the eastern bluebird as the type species. Seven subspecies are recognis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Blue Heron
The great blue heron (''Ardea herodias'') is a large wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae, common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North America and Central America, as well as the Caribbean and the Galápagos Islands. It is a rare vagrant to coastal Spain, the Azores, and areas of far southern Europe. An all-white population found in south Florida and the Florida Keys is known as the great white heron. Debate exists about whether this represents a white color morph of the great blue heron, a subspecies of it, or an entirely separate species. The status of white individuals known to occur elsewhere in the Caribbean, and their existence is rarely found elsewhere besides in eastern North America. Taxonomy The great blue heron was one of the many species originally described by Carl Linnaeus in his 18th-century work, '' Systema Naturae''. The scientific name comes from Latin ''ardea'', and Ancient Greek (), both meaning "heron". The great blue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cackling Goose
The cackling goose (''Branta hutchinsii'') is a species of goose found in North America. Description The black head and neck with white "chinstrap" distinguish this goose from all other geese except the larger Canada goose (''Branta canadensis'') and the similarly sized barnacle goose (''B. leucopsis''). There are up to 5 subspecies of cackling goose, of varying sizes and plumage details. The female looks virtually identical but is slightly lighter and has a different voice. Some are hard to distinguish from the Canada goose, with which the cackling goose was long assumed to form one species, the cackling goose and the smaller Canada goose subspecies being called the lesser Canada goose. The smallest Cackling geese (''B. h. minima'') are much smaller than any Canada goose, but the subspecies ''B. h. hutchinsii'', at up to , grows to the same size as some Canada geese. The distinctness of the extinct population of the Komandorski and Kuril Islands ''B. h. asiatica'' is controvers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canada Geese
The Canada goose (''Branta canadensis''), or Canadian goose, is a large wild goose with a black head and neck, white cheeks, white under its chin, and a brown body. It is native to the arctic and temperate regions of North America, and it is occasionally found during migration across the Atlantic in northern Europe. It has been introduced to the United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, Japan, Chile, Argentina, and the Falkland Islands. Like most geese, the Canada goose is primarily herbivorous and normally migratory; often found on or close to fresh water, the Canada goose is also common in brackish marshes, estuaries, and lagoons. Extremely adept at living in human-altered areas, Canada geese have established breeding colonies in urban and cultivated habitats, which provide food and few natural predators. The success of this common park species has led to its often being considered a pest species because of its excrement, its depredation of crops, its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waterfowl
Anseriformes is an order of birds also known as waterfowl that comprises about 180 living species of birds in three families: Anhimidae (three species of screamers), Anseranatidae (the magpie goose), and Anatidae, the largest family, which includes over 170 species of waterfowl, among them the ducks, geese, and swans. Most modern species in the order are highly adapted for an aquatic existence at the water surface. With the exception of screamers, males have penises, a trait that has been lost in the Neoaves. Due to their aquatic nature, most species are web-footed. Evolution Anseriformes are one of only two types of modern bird to be confirmed present during the Mesozoic alongside the other dinosaurs, and in fact were among the very few birds to survive their extinction, along with their cousins the galliformes. These two groups only occupied two ecological niches during the Mesozoic, living in water and on the ground, while the toothed enantiornithes were the dominant bird ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York State Department Of Environmental Conservation
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (informally referred to as NYSDEC, DEC, EnCon or NYSENCON) is a department of New York state government. The department guides and regulates the conservation, improvement, and protection of New York's natural resources; manages Forest Preserve lands in the Adirondack and Catskill parks, state forest lands, and wildlife management areas; regulates sport fishing, hunting and trapping; and enforces the state's environmental laws and regulations. Its regulations are compiled in Title 6 of the ''New York Codes, Rules and Regulations''. It was founded in 1970, replacing the Conservation Department. and is headed by Basil Seggos. NYS DEC had an annual budget of about $1,430 million for FY 2017, and employs roughly 3,000 people across New York State. It manages over of protected state-owned land and another of privately owned land on which it holds conservation easements. The department's activities go beyond land management ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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