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En plein air odonate

May 31, 2014 - This has been a slow season for dragonflies, and I've yet to have one join me on my morning walks down my country road....
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The Sphinx... moth

May 30, 2014 - Most days, I have to come to nature, but often, at night, nature comes to me. One of my favorite "harvest" spots is righ...
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A new kind of forester

May 28, 2014 - In the process of trying get a clear look at some sort of very noisy songbird at the far edge of a field, I noticed this...
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Free at last

May 28, 2014 - Exuvia: An exuvia (plural exuviae) is the cast-off outer skin of an arthropod after a moult. In some species the exuvia...
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Pewee in-coming

May 27, 2014 - Eastern Wood Pewees are rather nondescript olive-gray and white flycatchers that live in forests. But while their plumag...
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I love a parade

May 26, 2014 - I love living in a small, rural town, and one of the things I most treasure about North Stonington is our annual Memoria...
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The Pinxter flower in full glory

May 25, 2014 - Towards the end of May, I start searching the wetter areas of the woods and the wooded swamps for the spectacular pink b...
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We have triplets!

May 24, 2014 - The rain, what there was of it, finally departed, but the sun did not break through the heavy clouds to usher in what mo...
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We have (cormorant) liftoff

May 23, 2014 - Depending on whom you believed, we were either supposed to get a fair amount of rain, or a deluge with high winds, hail,...
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Follow the leader

May 22, 2014 - The meadow across the street may be doomed to be destroyed by developers, but until the heavy equipment turns a grasslan...
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Bell Cedar, by water

May 21, 2014 - On my various treks into the Bell Cedar Swamp, this was my objective: the zone where the land uneasily meets the water..
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A damsel not in distress

May 20, 2014 - I hadn't intended to make a swing by this spot along the shore of the mill pond that was odonate heaven last summer. It...
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Clair de Luna

May 19, 2014 - I always listen for Claude Debussy's classic song, "Clair de Lune," when the first Luna Moths appear at the kitchen porc...
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A beacon back home

May 18, 2014 - I take great pride in my direction-finding ability, and on various trips into a more-or-less trackless local wilderness...
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Natural "cinnamon"

May 17, 2014 - The fiddlehead year is rapidly coming to an end, as most of the local ferns have finished unrolling their fronds from st...
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Butterbutt, improved

May 16, 2014 - A weak cold front moved through last night, and it brought a bit of sunshine in the morning, along with a wave of songbi...
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Leaves of grass

May 15, 2014 - In trying to put together a phenology—a record of the timing of nature's events—I'm always on the lookout for certain sp...
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Just plain witchety luck

May 14, 2014 - I only had time for a short walk this morning, so, instead of taking a right at the bottom of my country road, I took a...
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A glorious commoner

May 13, 2014 - This is one of my favorite flowers, the Wood Anemone. It's incredibly common, and it's quite small: a carpet of groups o...
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A vireo with spectacles

May 12, 2014 - My ears are pretty astute when it comes to bird calls, and though the leaves are only just beginning to make my visual l...
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A rarity, perhaps?

May 11, 2014 - For the past month or so, I've been involved in what is supposed to be an expedition into the Bell Cedar Swamp, a refuge...
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Rockbreakers and bumblebees

May 10, 2014 - I have had my eye on this plant for months, and over the past couple of weeks, I've watched the Virginia Rockbreaker—my...
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In search of worms and warblers

May 09, 2014 - Last June, when I first discovered a local refuge called Babcock Ridge, I quickly learned that it was a temporary haven...
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Duskywings arrive in droves

May 08, 2014 - While my eyes and ears have been drawn to the treetops in the endless hope of spotting and photographing warblers, I als...
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Frogzilla emerges

May 07, 2014 - This morning, I was out early, en route to the University of Rhode Island's W. Alton Jones campus in West Greenwich. For...
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An invasive beauty

May 06, 2014 - Usually, I concentrate on native plants and animals and avoid writing about and photographing cultivated varieties. But...
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A touch of gold

May 05, 2014 - At this time of year, I'm always on the lookout for early spring wildflowers, and a walk through the wetlands near the h...
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Mini-mystery butterfly

May 04, 2014 - When I first spotted this stunning but quite mini- butterfly working the rocks, my first thought was, "I know this guy..
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The ode season begins

May 03, 2014 - Since I had to go to the dump anyway, and since plans to take my grandsons for a hike had to be postponed, I figured tha...
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The night of the spadefoots

May 02, 2014 - The Spadefoot recording I sent out last night exerted considerable charm, and my good friend Dave Skelly, a Yale ecologi...
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A genuine deluge

May 01, 2014 - For the past few years—the drought years—when the Weather Channel has forecast something approaching a monsoon, you coul...
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