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...

After dealing with the piles of snow that have graced New England the past fortnight, my girlfriend Alison and I went to check out two Mass Audubon sanctuaries south of Boston. We first toured the Sharon Beals exhibit at the Museum of American Bird Art in Canton, where the exhibit featured the photographers portraits of birds nests from all over the world. We looked at each of the nests lining the walls of the art gallery as they portrayed the many ways birds build nests ranging from the neat weavings of sparrows and thrushes, to the simple depressions of shorebirds, and then to the macabre stick and bone nest of the House Wren ( Troglodytes aedon ). This sometimes horrid, little songbird has the nasty habit of taking over the nests of other songbirds and will even pierce the eggs and kill the chicks inside to secure the nest site for themselves. The nest in the photograph, set on black to show the subtle details that had gone into each nest, was lined with the dessicated remains of th...