Non-metaphorical
March 30, 2019 - The order of the day was to head to Avalonia's amazing TriTown Forest Preserve to sample the vernal pools atop Rixtown M...
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Cosmopolitan beauty
March 30, 2019 - With the weather finally warming up, I've been out in the woods looking for a particular Beauty from a place called Camb...
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Aquatic lightning
March 29, 2019 - Sometimes mistakes turn out for the best, and when I was out at the vernal pool complex near my house—the area I've been...
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Batrachian birthrite
March 28, 2019 - Now this is a rare scene that I wish we'd been graced with last night on the public vernals trek. With a strong Wood Fro...
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Vernal night hike
March 27, 2019 - One of the greatest joys of my life has been the numerous natural history walks I've been able to lead over the years to...
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Debut mac egg sacks
March 26, 2019 - In my vernal pool, things have been a little slow getting started. There are certainly plenty of Wood Frogs quacking up...
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Menage a quatre
March 25, 2019 - It's still chilly, but I have a public walk for the Avalonia Land Conservancy to plan at my old stomping ground, the Bab...
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Faux bee
March 24, 2019 - With the Winter Aconites at peak and the early crocuses beginning to come up in huge drifts—this looks like a fine, fine...
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The S word, again
March 23, 2019 - Snow was in the forecast, but I really didn't believe it when I noticed the S word in the Weather Channel's prognosticat...
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Batrachian beginnings
March 22, 2019 - Today was given over, starting with the countdown to 9:05 in the morning, the precise time my granddaughter Stasia greet...
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Coffee and cats
March 21, 2019 - My granddaughter Stasia is going to turn nine tomorrow, but because it was rainy and raw and we all had the day free whi...
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Along came a spider
March 20, 2019 - One of the natural history "adventures" I can promise visitors to these pages is my ongoing attempt to learn the spiders...
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Welcome, fish hawks
March 19, 2019 - This is definitely one of those "picture is worth a thousand words" shots. The Osprey couples are back and tidying up th...
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Our own crocus flower show
March 18, 2019 - A mere day or two after I spotted the first Crocus blooms at a well-situated, south-facing, heat-absorbing-and-releasing...
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Irish Day luck
March 16, 2019 - I doubt I have one drop of Irish blood coursing through my veins, but I love corned beef and cabbage, Irish music, and t...
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Doubling down
March 15, 2019 - There are lots of things I'm on the lookout for these days, and when it comes to any excuse to work my way past the area...
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Microclimate
March 15, 2019 - Before I kvell about this year's grand opening of the first crocus, I need to add a little truth in advertising. First,...
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Striking arrivals
March 14, 2019 - Quite unexpectedly, I'd spotted Goosanders—the common and utterly British name for the Common Merganser—exceedingly earl...
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Uneasy touch
March 13, 2019 - It wasn't the nicest of days, so, with Stasia on vacation, we opted to visit the Wheeler Library in town for a program p...
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Holly gourmet
March 12, 2019 - If there is a prettier bird than the Cedar Waxwing in our neighborhood, I don't know what it is. And in terms of avian h...
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Foggy sign
March 11, 2019 - Maybe spring will come after all. For the first time in about a week, the temperature shows signs of heading over the fr...
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Pre-spring fling
March 09, 2019 - As a naturalist and photographer, one of my favorite late-winter sports is searching for signs of the upcoming growing s...
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Topsy turvy winter
March 08, 2019 - The winter that essentially never got going has finally camped out on the ridge. There are only two weeks left to go, al...
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Watchful eyes
March 07, 2019 - It's turned sharply colder, but it's also the start of duck courtship season, so, in the still un-refrozen stretches of...
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Pas de many
March 06, 2019 - The ice is returning to the ponds and the Canada Geese are not happy. The areas in which they can float serenely and sec...
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Tracking a ghost
March 05, 2019 - One of the drawbacks of this mostly snowless winter is that I haven't had a chance to hone my tracking skills, which, I...
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Conversation piece
March 04, 2019 - When the snow finally started late last night—it arrived half-a-dozen hours past the forecasted debut—I had high hopes t...
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Snow problem
March 03, 2019 - Just when it was beginning to look like this was going to be a truly snowless winter, March arrived and, with it, the Ma...
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Two at once
March 02, 2019 - Finally, finally, finally... snow deep enough to actually do something wintry on! The overnight storm would have been, i...
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Welcomer
March 01, 2019 - There just wasn't an awful lot going on today, which was consumed by a very busy end of the week work wrap-up. Sometimes...
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