Berkshire Green Drinks presents Northeastern Cliff Swallows

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Linda Merry, a conservation biologist and operational meteorologist, will present at the May Berkshire Green Drinks on Wednesday, May 8. 
 
This free hybrid event will take place online via Zoom and in person at The Barn of the Williams Inn, 103 Spring Street in Williamstown. The in-person social gathering will begin around 5:15 PM; the presentation and Zoom meeting will start at 6:00 PM. If the weather permits, the in-person gathering will take place outdoors.
 
Berkshire Environmental Action Team (BEAT) welcomes back Linda Merry—who initially presented at Green Drinks in August 2022—for an update on her ongoing research on cliff swallows. Some may remember when Linda discussed her first conservation adventure: artificial nesting and habitat remediation. 
 
For the May Berkshire Green Drinks presentation, Linda will discuss the natural history of northeastern cliff swallows, their current conservation status, efforts to conserve populations, and her current conservation adventure: the investigation of correlation in the abundance of local insect prey and nesting density, as well as Ferren's hypothesis (applied to the BCC main campus) which simply states that "the amount of available source mud is correlated to the potential nesting density of the colony."
 
 
Linda Merry is a conservation biologist and operational meteorologist who thoroughly enjoys photography and ornithology. Her work exists at that junction where the sciences and the arts collide. She is currently employed as an Assistant and Adjunct Instructor in the Environmental and Life Sciences Department at Berkshire Community College.
If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

WilliNet Facing Dane's Retirement, Uncertain Fiscal Future

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The face of and driving force behind the town's community access television station will retire this summer.
 
At Monday's Select Board meeting, the president of the board of WilliNet announced that longtime Executive Director Debby Dane will leave the non-profit on June 30 and move to California, "following her 5-month-old granddaughter."
 
"The search committee has begun its work to find a replacement hire," Mary Strout told the Select Board. "Deb will be hard to replace, however the board is confident we will find an individual well suited to move the organization forward."
 
"Now, I'm speechless," Chair Stephanie Boyd replied on hearing of Dane's departure.
 
Earlier, before Strout made news, Boyd praised the town's Public, Educational and Governmental (PEG) Access station, founded in 1994.
 
"As everybody knows, WilliNet holds our community together, gets our town meetings and committee meetings online as well as all of the work in the town," Boyd said. "I know, after looking at so many towns' public TV stations over the last month that we're very close to the best. Maybe we even are the best.
 
"I can't say enough good things about WilliNet, the website, the programming, the professionalism. It's really, really incredible. We should all be very grateful for the hard work of Deb [Dane] and Jack [Criddle] and the rest of the team."
 
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