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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
Gnat nightmare
April 22, 2015 - Today was Earth Day, the wonderful holiday for naturalists and conservationists everywhere, and my day for celebrating b...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
Not quite impossible
April 03, 2015 - For the naturalist, the nature guide, and the photographer, Spring Peepers are impossible amphibians. Oh, they exist......
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
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...
Read the Full Post »
|