No matter where you find yourself at Christmas you can enjoy the natural world in all its splendor. In Florida we can be raking leaves instead of shoveling snow and working at attracting birds and butterflies to our yards. One […]
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I am writing this in early December in Florida after a period of rains and some cool fronts. To attract butterflies you must provide flowers for nectar and larval food plants. […]
While many people celebrate Thanksgiving with football, shopping, and food, I continue to find my greatest pleasures in the natural wonders which surround us every day. Indeed some of the most overlooked aspects of nature can be the most intriguing. […]
I have for some time been dissatisfied with being primarily interested in one aspect of natural history such as birds or plants. The variety of fascinating creatures I have encountered this week illustrates the difficulty of restricting your scope of […]
I would have to say that I have never seen a natural area, in contrast to most urban landscapes, that I did not find interesting. But as frost rapidly envelops our Virginia Blue Ridge farm, […]
It is time for our annual migration to Florida so we are bidding a fond farewell to our beloved Virginia Blue Ridge mountain farm. During the brief interludes in rain over the past week I have been able to catch […]
We happened to be in the Salt Lake City area in early October to visit family so I made an excursion to two of my favorite aquatic natural areas, Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area and Antelope Island. The Great Salt […]
A bonus of a recent visit to our kids and grandkids that live out west is that I got to experience some wonderful montane habitats in Montana and Utah. It is not only exciting to […]
During a family trip to Baltimore we took the opportunity to visit some favorite spots along the Eastern Shore of VA, especially Kiptopeke and Chincoteague, VA. This is as far east as you can go without getting your feet in […]
Although frost was delayed last fall until Oct. 20 at our VA farm, I am not counting on such luck this year, and am enjoying every day left of the bounty of summer. Of course fall brings its own natural […]
Although many of our favorite birds have migrated south by late August and early September, there is a great profusion of insect life in the fields and meadows. Thus this time of year I spend a great deal more time […]
We have perhaps four pairs of willow flycatchers breeding near our house in VA and recently were able to document two nests in red twigged dogwoods. This constitutes a new record for late summer breeding for VA and allowed us […]
In late summer there is an intense saga playing out between monarch butterflies and the milkweeds in our hay fields. Although monarchs are in a general decline, we are seeing reasonable numbers at our yard flowers and in the fields […]
Sometimes you are surprised by the abundance of life in an unexpected place. One such paradoxical reservoir of biodiversity is the old field, perhaps thought of as a neglected former pasture or hayfield, or a place […]
As the lazy, hazy days of summer are upon us there are distinct changes in the pace of natural life. The bulk of bird breeding activity is over and fall migration has begun. But insect activity […]
Knowledge is a funny thing- you think you know things but often the information comes from books, the internet or other people and you do not have personal experience to confirm a fact. Recently during an interesting presentation on local […]
When caterpillars are toxic, they tend to be brightly colored and some possess painful spines. Tasty caterpillars are usually well camouflaged; some are green to resemble foliage, some mimic bird droppings or twigs, and some have […]
Some of those animals that we consider predators may sometimes become prey in the complex world of food webs. For example the orb weaver spiders are familiar to us since they spin large webs with concentric […]
Now that summer is well underway, you might think that the breeding frenzy so typical of the spring time is over. That seems far from the truth based on my observations lately. Many species are still […]
We would all like to be friends to the birds and enjoy their company. However when a barn swallow builds a nest on your porch you will be tested to the limit by the resultant mess of mud and poop. […]