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Bee-ing a mimic

April 30, 2015 - I love bee flies, and every time they start arriving—typically late April or early May—I grab my camera to try to captur...
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Willow flowers

April 30, 2015 - One of the great joys in my life is learning a new refuge, either as part of a biological survey or in advance of leadin...
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Shad awakening

April 29, 2015 - With my granddaughter in residence, we've been hitting the local hiking trails daily, and on our agenda today was a trek...
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Splendid singer

April 28, 2015 - Blue-gray Gnatcatchers are among the smallest songbirds in our cast of avian characters, and they're one of the hardest...
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Time-honored tadpole tradition

April 27, 2015 - The Wood Frog tadpoles started hatching a couple of days ago, but most of them are still sticking pretty close to their...
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The real Gary

April 26, 2015 - Like just about every little kid I run into, my granddaughter is absolutely in love with the characters of the SpongeBob...
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Billing

April 25, 2015 - The "great blue wave" of Tree Swallows arrived later than usual this year—no doubt, because of the intense and late-depa...
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Spring unrolling

April 24, 2015 - Fiddleheads, so named because they look like the tuning pegs of violins and other stringed instruments in that family, a...
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Gray, gray day

April 23, 2015 - The weather turned from blue and gorgeous to gray and grim with cold rain and maybe even a bit of hail and snow in the f...
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Gnat nightmare

April 22, 2015 - Today was Earth Day, the wonderful holiday for naturalists and conservationists everywhere, and my day for celebrating b...
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A red maple gift

April 21, 2015 - I've had my eye on the Red Maples, a.k.a., the Swamp Maples, for a couple of weeks now, and finally, my persistent in ob...
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On the arbutus trail

April 20, 2015 - The bloom season for an exquisite wildflower known as the Trailing Arbutus is a tricky thing to time, but after a few ye...
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Toad dreams

April 19, 2015 - Henry David Thoreau wrote about listening to the dream of the toads—the loud and beautiful trilling that comes from thes...
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Thanks, Adele

April 18, 2015 - Today was a memorial for a visionary woman I never got to meet. Adele Erisman was a wonderfully unassuming conservationi...
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No hellebore falsity

April 17, 2015 - The Skunk Cabbage, the first "wildflower" of the season, is up and leafing out in the wet parts of the woods, but it is...
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Bloodroot emerging

April 16, 2015 - I can't say for sure that the white wildflower known as Bloodroot emerged from wintersleep today, because I wasn't here...
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Somber moment, great Fenway day

April 15, 2015 - At 2:49 in the afternoon today, all of Boston went silent to mark the second anniversary of that awful time when the fir...
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Up close and personal

April 14, 2015 - With genuine warmth in the air, the early blooming flowers are filled with all manner of hymenopterans. I've spotted a f...
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Reptile's return

April 13, 2015 - On visits to Henne, I've been scanning the air for signs of returning migrant birds and the water for signs of resurrect...
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Moss generation next

April 12, 2015 - If my proverbial ship ever comes in—at this point in my dotage, I'm not holding my breath—I'm hoping it will pull into p...
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The amphibian money shot

April 11, 2015 - I have spent probably more time than I should admit watching animals copulating, and I guess that I'm so used to it that...
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Unexpected appearance

April 10, 2015 - At least a few times every year, I get off the ridge to travel to a magical place known as the W. Alton Jones campus, UR...
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Without a trace

April 09, 2015 - It was gray and grim weather, and I had a small mountain of writing to do, so I didn't have much time for a walk. But I...
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Hot frog on ice

April 08, 2015 - It was raining off and on, but that, of course, didn't bother the frogs... or the naturalist, so, as soon as I had all t...
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Big macs

April 07, 2015 - The first Spotted Salamanders, a.k.a. "macs"—a reference to their Latin name, Ambystoma maculatum —came out on the night...
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The "Jesus" bugs

April 05, 2015 - The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John recount the well-known story of Jesus walking on the water. It's a miracle, of co...
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First lepidopteran on the wing

April 05, 2015 - Easter, of course, is the time of resurrection, but regardless of your religious beliefs or lack thereof, spring is most...
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The death of giants

April 04, 2015 - These days, I'm so ticked off about the perpetrators of the carnage across the street that I'm inclined to blame everyth...
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Not quite impossible

April 03, 2015 - For the naturalist, the nature guide, and the photographer, Spring Peepers are impossible amphibians. Oh, they exist......
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X-rated

April 02, 2015 - I heard the first Wood Frogs yesterday afternoon—a chorus that many people mistake for the mutterings of annoyed ducks—b...
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No foolin'

April 01, 2015 - The destruction down the road will result in lots of collateral damage, but one thing I'm trying to minimize is the impa...
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