Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

Grey squirrel, but not T.S. We share our homes and neighbourhoods with a plethora of wildlife. Deer frolic through our yards, while chickadees and titmice visit our feeders in search of a quick snack. Ants and spiders crawl under the walls of our homes, occasionally appearing to quickly dash between the cabinets in search of food. Even our pets aren't immune. Leave any of their food alone outdoors and you're sure to be visited by opossums, skunks, and woodchucks, all looking to gain access to an easy meal. While these creatures often appear in the yard, they seem to keep their distance. That is unless you've been feeding them in which case you should definitely stop. Seriously, the last thing you need is a mass of animals expecting food from you every time you appear at the door. At best, it's mildly annoying to be pestered by a deer who wants some more of those apple slices that it usually gets when you leave your house. At worst, you might be creating a ground z...

Exhibit A: The Apple. Sometime on Saturday morning, we were the victims of a break in. Now normally when someone is subject to theft, an item of value is usually taken. Televisions, computers, jewelry, DVDs, and money are all examples of what most burglars will consider to be valuable. Our burglar however didn't want any of these material possessions. All he wanted was an apple. Before leaving to explore Pratt's Falls in Manlius, I noticed a half eaten apple on the sill of the kitchen window. After consulting with my girlfriend, we determined that neither of us was sloppy enough to leave a partially eaten apple on the windowsill and in such plain sight. Upon closer inspection, the teeth marks on the apple were too narrow to be from either of us. It was only after that closer inspection that we noticed the hole. In our apartment's kitchen window, there are the window sashes (that we've been keeping open due to the warm summer weather) and the screen that we tho...

Today when I came home from work, I rescued a squirrel from our dumpster. It likely had jumped in through the chewed hole on the double plastic lids that protected our trash until it was ready to be hauled to another patch of earth further away. I wasn't surprised to see the squirrel in there at all. After all, they were the ones that chewed the hole. It's amazing to think that in a few, short generations, these wild animals have adapted to our ordered way of life. Now, even those of us that live within a small town can find evidence of our wild neighbors daily. Just the other evening, I came upon a sorry sight. There was a dead nestling on the grass next to the house. Even after nudging it with my toe, it didn't budge. It was likely one of the young starlings that jeered for their parents return to the eaves and tressels of the house, mouths stuffed with insects and worms. All except this one. It might have taken a step too far and fallen from its home on high. Or maybe ...

A flutter of wings caught my attention as I left Wegman's this morning. A Monarch butterfly ( Danaus plexippus ) flapping furiously in a southwesterly direction skimmed past my peripheral and into the bright morning sky. So small and under appreciated, yet this butterfly is simply doing what tradition has commanded it to do for thousands of years. What I've been missing the past few weeks has been an opportunity to escape the city to see the wild spread out and away like in a forest or a marsh. This is a silly idea of course, as nature doesn't simply exist solely "out there", but all around us. As one tuned into the natural world, I cannot help but notice the constant changes the world experiences day by day and season by season. With the autumn equinox having passed midweek and the prospect of leaves emblazoned against the branches that once funneled nutrients back and forth between sky and root, one can see clearly that change has arrived. As I've com...

Sciurus Niger, Black Squirrel When you move to a new place, it often comes with new sights and scenes. One of the more unexpected examples has been the color of the local squirrels. Squirrels in the northeast are already named for their predominant colors (with the exception of flying squirrels), but as the picture to the left shows, they also come in black. While they seem like a different species, these "black" squirrels are actually a melanistic morph of the regular Eastern Grey Squirrel ( Sciurus carolinensis ). In the past, this didn't prevent prominent scientists and naturalists from labeling them as such however.  Even though color morphs were certainly known about in the 1800s, there was still the constant taxonomic war known as "lumping and splitting". Even today, there are still battles and hypotheses being waged about certain species either being regarded as unique from one another or as simply being a subspecies. In biology, species and su...