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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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'...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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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...
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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....
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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...
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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...
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