Nature Notebook

While following up on some Smart Meter info at Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. (PPL), I stumbled across their Nature Notebook.

The Nature Notebook is a weekly radio feature delivered by PPL senior naturalist Jon Beam. It's broadcast on Sundays at 4:57 p.m. on the National Public Radio affiliate serving northeastern and central Pennsylvania.

A joint venture between PPL and WVIA-FM, The Nature Notebook is an extension of PPL's long-standing environmental education efforts at its environmental preserves. The weekly series examines both subtle and obvious changes that occur in nature throughout the year.

You can listen to the broadcasts online and read the transcripts. I especially liked the recent piece about monarchs, which is transcribed below:

June 29, 2008 - Monarchs
Welcome to the Nature Notebook.

By this time of year large orange-and-black Monarch butterflies catch our attention. These could be recently returned adults or just as likely newly emerged butterflies. Monarchs that migrated south to Mexico last fall began their northward journey in March. They made it as far as the southern United States to lay their eggs before they died. These eggs hatched and the caterpillars metamorphosed into adults. Those adult butterflies eventually made their way north where they are seeking out milkweed on which to lay their eggs. This new generation of Monarchs increases our summer population. Then by September the journey south begins. It reaches its peak through Pennsylvania by about mid-month as Monarchs set out on a journey of thousands of miles south to Mexico.


This is PPL's naturalist, Jon Beam, with the Nature Notebook for WVIA.