Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

Sycamore in the Stony Brook I feel like every once in a while you can appreciate nature in small doses. Nature has become big and that's not just because it's marketing team got better (we can thank National Geographic for that certainly). People wanting to "experience" the great outdoors, buying organic food, life listing rare and unusual species, hunting locavores (as in locavores hunting for wild food, not Ted Nugent's third favorite thing to shoot from a helicopter), and many other grandiose and specific things. Taking a sip While it certainly feels amazing knowing just how maple sap rises due to temperature fluctuations or why amphibians can breathe through their skin, taking time to appreciate a moment of pure presence can impress upon someone all the more. Take for example Monarch butterflies ( Danaus plexippus ). You see them gliding along passageways of tarmac and concrete, flapping furiously along roadsides looking to refuel not at Micky D...

This Saturday past, I participated in my very first Christmas Bird Count with my girlfriend Alison, and was excited to get many photos of some of the birds we spied. Our first stop was to a local woman's farm in Dartmouth. We helped out by covering ground that had yet to be covered by the owners, a mother and son team with a tenacity for birding and listing. Mystery moss growing on many of the trees above. I would like to know what it might be... A late female Eastern Towhee ( Pipilo erythrothalmus ) hiding out in some briars near some old farming equipment. Milkweed ( Asclepias spp. ) was a common sight throughout the property. Their importance is paramount not only in healthy meadow ecology, but also to that of the Monarch butterfly ( Danaus plexippus ). Despite looking wet, this Woolly Bear Caterpillar ( Pyrrharctica isabella ) might yet survive to become a moth in the spring. As prevalent as another bird with "house" in its name, these western finc...

I know most people see them as walking, swimming, and flying terrors out to steal your chips and ice cream, but I like gulls for two reasons. One reason is that their almost ubiquitous presence along our shores seems almost miraculous today because of the ways they were nearly eradicated up to 150 years ago. The adults were hunted for their feathers and wings to adorn the hats of fashionable society ladies in the mid to late 1800s, while the eggs were collected from their offshore colonies for fine diners in New York, Boston, and Pittsburgh. Thankfully the slaughter was stopped by the Audubon Society and other concerned citizens and today they are one of our most ubiquitous citizens along our shores, lakes, and beaches. The second reason I have taken a shine to them is that because of their common presence around the parking lot where I now sit (and wait for hunters to hopefully come in and allow me to survey them on their success at hunting Oldsquaws. Yeah birding community, I just we...