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Q&A with a Guam brown tree snake biologist
I admit it: most of my friends are cooler than me. You may have heard last month about the U.S. government’s plan to drop acetaminophen-laced mice on the island of Guam to control its invasive...
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nature and conservation linkspam
I spent the afternoon snowshoeing into a wilderness area with a group of teenagers, but I was too focused on them to spend any time looking for natural history stuff to photograph for this blog. (Yep,...
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devil down-head
I finally managed to get a couple decent photos of our Red-breasted Nuthatches – they’re very common here, but they’re quick little buggers! This one is a male, which you can tell from his coal-black...
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why does snow melt around the bases of trees?
I’m sure you’ve all noticed this if you’ve been in the woods in winter: as the season goes on (and on and on, if you live where I do), the first place snow starts to retreat a little is often around...
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Snowshoe Adventure (Part 1)
My feet on the left in modern-style snowshoes, Leanna’s on the right in traditional snowshoes she wove and lacquered herself. This afternoon I talked my friend Leanna into snowshoeing back out to...
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Snowshoe Adventure (Part 2)
Okay, so if you remember from Wednesday, the reason we were snowshoeing out to Inkpot Lake was to check out some reports of Black-backed Woodpecker activity in the area. Black-backed Woodpeckers are a...
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Snowshoe Adventure (Part 3)
(I swear this is not an April Fool’s Day post. I tried and failed to think of something clever for April Fool’s Day. This is just the continuation of Part 1 and Part 2 of last week’s snowshoe...
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Desert Wildflowers
When I left my house on Saturday morning it was snowing, but here I am in southern Arizona for my spring break, where at this time of year the daily high temperature is around ninety and the air smells...
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The Itsiest Bitsiest Butterfly
Okay, there is really nothing in this photo to give you much of a sense of scale, but this is the Western Pygmy-Blue (Brephidium exilis), also known as the smallest butterfly in North America, with a...
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Leapin’ Lizards
I’m back in Wisconsin now, but I have a couple more Arizona posts to share with you. We had the opportunity to observe some interesting lizard behavior in Usery Mountain Regional Park in the Phoenix...
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Arizona Alligator
Alligator Juniper, that is! This fantastic tree, Juniperus deppeana, is common in the woods of southeastern Arizona. Take a closer look at that fantastic bark. Gorgeous. No other juniper species has...
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Love Drummers! (Also Known as Prairie Chickens)
The scientific name of the Greater Prairie Chicken is Tympanuchus cupido. Translated from Latin, that loosely means “drummer of love.” The quirky name comes from its elaborate and famous courtship...
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Everything Is Changing and Everything Is Connected
Did anyone notice that I missed posting on Monday as usual? I was in Madison, at the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies’ annual Earth Day Conference (yes, Earth Day is April 22, they were a...
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Sad Woodcock Is Sad
I’d been convinced for a while that even though we hadn’t seen or heard them yet, our woodcocks must be here somewhere, hunkered down and waiting for the weather to change so they could start their...
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Conservation & Nature Linkspam
No natural history news to report other than endless cold and wet and snow (temperatures dipped to zero F again over the weekend, and we’re under yet another Winter Storm Warning tonight). Instead, let...
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Slope Aspect and Snowmelt
With high temperatures reaching the fifties this week, the snow is finally – and slooooowly – starting to melt. However, it doesn’t melt at a uniform rate everywhere on the property. A number of...
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First Lep of the Year!
(Lep = Lepidopteran = butterfly or moth. Come on, you knew that, right?) There is hope for spring yet! In the past week we’ve had more and more migratory birds – sapsuckers, sparrows, Yellow-rumped...
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Return of the Sapsuckers
Some of our woodpeckers – Downy, Hairy, Pileated – are year-round residents in the North Woods. Others – the Northern Flicker and the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker – are migrants, only here for the breeding...
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Dear Angry Squirrel
Dear Angry Squirrel, If your temper tantrums weren’t so photogenic I wouldn’t linger so long with my camera at the foot of your tree and you wouldn’t have reason to be so angry. Love, Rebecca.
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Aspen Caterpillars?
Last spring when I first noticed these fuzzy oblong shapes in the grass along the path, at first I mistook them for caterpillars. Upon closer inspection, definitely not caterpillars. These are the...
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