Owl News, an occasional dispatch by retired Westtown English teacher Tim Sterrett--and now, naturalist--chronicles the changing seasons on the Westtown campus.
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Owl News - November 13
With leaves off the trees, we are treated to long-lasting, panoramic, pastel sunsets. At mid-day, the Sun is low in the sky. (In mid-summer, the Sun is high at mid-day.) In winter, the Moon has a higher track across the sky. If the Sun were ever overhead, its light (and heat) would reach us down through one layer of atmosphere. When the Sun sets, its light slants through many layers of atmosphere.
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Owl News - October 15
The school campus lies near the heart of one of the world's great hardwood forests. While our ancestors did their best to remove the trees to make charcoal and to open the land for agriculture, we enjoy the leaf colors of the remnant in autumn.
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Owl News - September 8
Bird Migration ~ Carolina Locusts ~ Foxes ~ Stilt Grass ~ Jupiter and Sagittarius
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Jupiter rules the night sky, appearing at dusk in the south. Next to Jupiter is a group of stars that looks like a tilted house with a peaked roof. This is Sagittarius, The Archer. We have known since the Enlightenment, a spurt of learning in Europe in 1700s, that stars (other than the Sun!) have nothing to do with our well-being. -
Owl News - May 27
Tulip poplars are among the tallest of Westtown campus trees. In spring they produce big yellow-green-orange flowers that look sort of like tulips.
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Owl News - April 15
In the next week or so, chimney swifts should return to the sky over the school building. These small, acrobatic birds, often described as cigars with wings, will be rocketing across the sky, chittering and certainly sounding glad to be back.
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Owl News - April 1
April is wildflower month at Westtown. Starting next week, a walk on the cross country course between the Frog Pond and the Lake passes red, white, and toad trillium, bloodroot, bluebells, May apples, and spring beauties.
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Owl News - February 14
Winter aconite is blooming now in the South Woods (the woods below the Westtown science building). Aconite has quarter-sized, yellow flowers which open when the temperature reaches the mid-forties as it will on Friday afternoon to carpet the forest floor with fragrant blossoms. What is the advantage to aconite in flowering so early?
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Owl News - November 1
A walk to the Lake this weekend will show how red maples got their name. Red maples grow well with their feet wet. What is the most distant object visible to the naked human eye?
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Owl News - October 24
The chimney swifts (that flew above the school building all summer and gathered in a swirling gyre at dusk around the chimney where they roosted) have headed south. They are diurnal migrants, feeding on flying insects during the day as they drift south and roosting at night. Chimney swifts spend our winter months in the Amazon Basin of South America. While we endure winter here, the swifts enjoy summer in the Southern Hemisphere.
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