Subscribe
RSS
Archive
January (12) February March April (20) May (31) June (30) July (31) August (28) September October (18) November (18) December
January (1) February March April May June July August September October November December
January February March April May June July August September October November December
January February March April May June July August September October November December
January February March April May June July August September October November December

Incipient endgame

September 30, 2017 - Several days ago, I wrote about my happy discovery of a gorgeous Brown-hooded Owlet caterpillar munching on the goldenro...
Read the Full Post »

Master angler

September 29, 2017 - I recently received a brand new field guide from my old friend Richard Crossley about the identification of ducks and ge...
Read the Full Post »

Hiding in plain sight

September 28, 2017 - Thank God for BugGuide.net and its family of fine, fine invertebrate identifiers who are all, incidentally, unpaid volun...
Read the Full Post »

Later bloomers

September 26, 2017 - Naturalists and gardeners alike often set their late-winter and early-spring calendars to sync with the first flowers of...
Read the Full Post »

Coat of caterpillar colors

September 26, 2017 - The goldenrods have been prime for a good month, and on every walk, I comb them, leaves and flowers, for insect life, on...
Read the Full Post »

Golden afternoon

September 25, 2017 - The insanely glorious and record-breaking-warm weather continues, and it's really putting a crimp in my productivity. Ab...
Read the Full Post »

On the Monarch move

September 24, 2017 - Summer just doesn't want to quit, and with the temperature in the upper 80s this afternoon, I finished up the work that...
Read the Full Post »

Celebrate!

September 23, 2017 - What was left of Hurricane Jose finally pulled far enough away from the coast to free us from a long stretch of dreary w...
Read the Full Post »

Kitty-pillar

September 22, 2017 - Sometimes, you're just in the right place at the right time... and you're paying attention to the right things. So it wa...
Read the Full Post »

Shedding the year

September 21, 2017 - Today marks the first full day of the Jewish New Year—Rosh Hashanah actually began at sundown yesterday—and, according t...
Read the Full Post »

Slimy discovery

September 20, 2017 - When I was a kid, life was certainly easier—and so were biological discoveries. Case in point: these elegant sporangia a...
Read the Full Post »

Slug porn

September 18, 2017 - I miss having my granddaughter in residence... well, most of the time. Tonight, however, a rainy and humid evening, I wa...
Read the Full Post »

Slow burn

September 18, 2017 - Long before autumn's Big Show, which, of course, is the turning of the leaves, there's a Little Show that starts in late...
Read the Full Post »

The blues begin

September 17, 2017 - We've had wild asters in bloom since the middle of August, but they were the white, Wood variety—and their cousins—and t...
Read the Full Post »

Juvenile uncertainty

September 16, 2017 - Sometimes the best discoveries are those closest to home, and so it went this morning, when I was taking a writing break...
Read the Full Post »

No blue spots here

September 15, 2017 - I got a call from my youngest grandson Luc, who is now an eighth-grader with a longstanding love of all things amphibian...
Read the Full Post »

Reading the weeds

September 14, 2017 - As part of my ongoing mission to ensure that the unnerving title of Richard Louv's book, Last Child in the Woods, doesn'...
Read the Full Post »

Thick-headedness

September 12, 2017 - When I spotted this possible wasp working the Jewelweed leaves by the Assekonk Swamp, I realized, fairly fast, that it w...
Read the Full Post »

Frog in the coalmine

September 12, 2017 - My wife was alarmed when she noticed this Pickerel Frog trying to swim in a small pool of water that had gathered in a t...
Read the Full Post »

Night moves

September 11, 2017 - Where was a grandchild when I needed one? Tonight, as has been my pattern for the past week or so, I slowly walked a cir...
Read the Full Post »

Faking it

September 10, 2017 - Every year, I try to learn a new group of critters—as well as, of course, add to my attempts to master the identificatio...
Read the Full Post »

Pharmacy visit

September 09, 2017 - One of the most useful things about keeping natural history records is that, after a while—several years, at the very le...
Read the Full Post »

Getting to know you

September 08, 2017 - I've often voiced frustration and confusion over a group of pretty little lookalike butterflies that are lumped under th...
Read the Full Post »

Serpent, disturbed

September 07, 2017 - A week post-angiogram, I was given clearance to get back to normal, and one of the first things I did was to spend quali...
Read the Full Post »

Beautiful winged

September 06, 2017 - When it comes to an identification, this almost everyday insect is more than a bit confusing. At first glance, it appear...
Read the Full Post »

Psychedelic skeeter

September 05, 2017 - I have to admit something scandalous: in the 1960s, not only did I inhale, but I also ingested... OK, truthfulness time,...
Read the Full Post »

Summer's endgame

September 04, 2017 - This is always the saddest day of the year: the last day the lake we frequent is open for business. And this was a sadde...
Read the Full Post »

Color splash

September 03, 2017 - Several years ago, our town made a truly enlightened decision and bought the old Hewitt Farm to preserve as open space....
Read the Full Post »

Back end

September 02, 2017 - Every night, after the sun goes down, the evening chorus begins. A few months ago, it would have included the flute sona...
Read the Full Post »

Better not touch

September 01, 2017 - The word "stunning" is often over-used when it comes to attempting to describe lepidopteran larvae, but in the case of t...
Read the Full Post »