Shannon Brennan

1 week ago | newsadvance.com | Shannon Brennan

Spring migration is under way, with peak in our area from late April to mid-May. Migration is one of the most miraculous efforts on planet Earth. Consider the tiny blackpoll warbler, 5 ½ inches long and weighing barely half an ounce. This beautiful black-and-white bird can fly up to 12,400 miles annually, giving it the longest migration of any North American songbird. They are one of the many wood warblers that travel through our area during spring migration.

2 weeks ago | newsadvance.com | Shannon Brennan

Dear Planet Earth,Fifty-five years ago on April 22, Americans promised to take better care of you. Your rivers were burning, the air was foul and we sprayed DDT without thought. A bipartisan Congress passed laws in the 1970s to create the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act and other environmental protections, and a Republican president signed them. Gradually, your rivers became cleaner, the air was easier to breathe and your creatures were treated with more respect.

3 weeks ago | newsadvance.com | Shannon Brennan

Dogwoods and redbuds have turned many of Virginia’s roadsides white and deep pink in a breathtaking display. Deciduous trees are unfurling leaves of every shade of green, yellow and red. As life returns to dormant plants, there is no better way to appreciate springtime than to get outdoors to look and listen. Mornings are filled with birdsong as birders impatiently await the arrival of tiny wood warblers and other migrants from Central and South America.

3 weeks ago | newsadvance.com | Shannon Brennan

Ten years ago, I was on the adventure of a lifetime. I quit my job at Lynchburg College (now the University of Lynchburg) to visit as many of America’s national parks as I could. I packed a tiny tent in my Toyota Prius to keep my footprint as small as possible. People thought I was nuts to leave my job a decade before retirement age and to travel alone. I have never been a fearful person, however, so I mapped out a route and headed south.

1 month ago | newsadvance.com | Shannon Brennan

I no longer know what to write about. How do I cheerily describe the heartbreakingly gorgeous natural world that sustains us as this administration dismantles the laws and agencies designed to protect it? This is not the country I grew up in. It’s no longer a place that values clean air and water or our national parks and forests. Endangered species might as well give up now. Climate change is killing people and other life forms but we have to pretend it doesn’t exist.