Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

As the dog days of summer trudge on, those of us in the world of adult responsibilities grind along too. We have jobs, appointment, and lives to lead regardless of how hot the weather and how inviting the sunshine is outside. Despite this, there is a familiar sound that punctuates the noise and grind that surrounds our everyday lives. Even as I've grown more and more used to life here in the city, noise still finds a way to puncture through. Recently I was listening to an episode of Roman Mars's podcast,  99% Invisible  where he discussed the difference between noise and sound. Noise is a sound or series of sounds that are annoying or disturbing to one's overall experience of the world, while a sound itself was the expulsion of air waves of a certain pitch and frequency that we recognize coming from a specific source, regardless of the impression it has on our experience of the surrounding world.  There is certainly no doubt that cities are noise centers. Rumbling tra...

As my last weekend in Pennsylvania draws to a close, I decided on Friday night to go birding somewhere. But as I searched the local hotspots for migrants (which have since been growing thin as the main songbird species such as warblers have all but gone), I couldn't find an ideal spot. I had mentioned to friends at work about my interest about going to Hawk Mountain, but recent counts suggested that the "good" species had already filed through. So as I clicked on the lists and links of eBird, my eye was drawn to local sightings of Rusty Blackbirds ( Euphagus carolinus ), a particularly hard bird to locate due to their scarcity (their population has declined 99% in the past 50 years or so) and habit of sticking to small flocks of their own kind. A park about 45 minutes north of Horsham had hosted the birds within the past week and seemed to be worth a look. The report also detailed the presence of a juvenile Brant ( Branta bernicla ) that had been grazing on the shore of...

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...