Don Torino of the BCAS writes a weekly column for wildnewjersey.tv.

His latest is on how we all can help Monarch butterflies, which have been in decline in recent years.

Here’s a sample:

This winter would be a great time to plan our strategy for getting more milkweed into our local environment.

We can start by attending County and local community meetings asking that our parks dept., schools, libraries, town halls, local businesses and where ever there is extra soil that milkweed be planted.

Many communities do spring plantings to spruce up government building with annual flowers. For not much more money they can have beautiful flowers that will help the Monarch butterflies survive.

And since milkweeds are perennials,  they will come back free of charge every year — a point that ahould make any politician’s ears perk up.

The link is here.

Ron Shields writes:

Please find attached sunset images from Friday and Sunday.

Breathtaking as usual!

Roy and “Sunset” Mike were in the area as well so you might get different perspectives.

Hopefully, they’ve submitted some images.  (Paging Roy and Mike….)

We stopped by the raven’s nesting site in Laurel Hill County Park and Friday and — consistent with reports we’d been getting — saw a Peregrine in and around the nest.

We suspect that this is the same Peregrine who drove the Common Ravens away and then nested on the swing bridge by Laurel Hill last summer.

(Curiously, the Ospreys that had been using the swing bridge nest moved over to a nearby antenna — at the Peregrines’ insistence — and nested there last summer.)

Will be curious to see what birds nest where next summer.