Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

As the first week at the Outdoor School* ended and the weekend arrived, I thought about what to write about this week. I had made it a goal to learn some common night-singing insect calls by visiting the Songs of Insects website and while I haven't done that yet, Sunday isn't over either. After returning from Giant to get some milk, I went for a walk to find some subjects for this weeks post. I decided to settle on three invasive plants that have appeared on the property over the summer. We were introduced to the first during orientation while walking from the group challenge field over the Pennypack Creek that runs through the property. The plant's huge leaves were what surprised me the most, as well as seeming so tropically out of place with the mid-Atlantic environment they were now living in. Initially we were stumped as to their identity, but after one of my bosses did some research, he determined that they were Empress or Princess Trees. Their scientific name is Pa...

For the past two weeks, I've been acclimatizing, getting to know the people, and learning my role for my job here in Horsham, Pennsylvania. As such, I've been looking around at what's similar and different about here to home. Earlier this week, I discovered these strange cocoons hanging from the tips of a spruce ( Picea spp. ) near the dining hall. I recognized them as bagworms, but admittedly, I know little about them. So after work I looked up some information on what species they were and their life cycle. The pictures above show small, pointed cocoons about 2 inches in length, that are constructed from needles and silk, and hang from the tips of the conifer. The photo below shows that there were a lot of them on the end of the branches. There were probably up to 30 or more on the upper and middle branches of the spruce and by the looks of it, the tree wasn't looking so hot. I visited PennState's College of Agricultural Sciences entomology page and found a...