Richmond: For the Birds & More After covering the impact of
geological, glacial and human forces on the Richmond landscape,
the highly popular Richmond Geographic series ended with two
looks at Richmond's natural world today. On May 23 at the Town
Center, Walter Poleman, the UVM natural history professor who
put the series together, showed slides of many of the birds that
call Richmond home at various times of the year. Poleman
demonstrated the value of learning to identify birds by their
songs, as many species stick to the treetops or underbrush, well
out of sight. Poleman also led local teachers and
representatives of town boards on an outing to local birding
hot-spots, where in less than four hours 51 species were either
spotted or heard. Closing the series on May 13, Poleman covered
the broad mix of natural communities that can be found in
Richmond because, as he noted, "the town sits astride two
physiographic regions of the state - the Champlain Valley and
the Green Mountains." Using slides and vivid des