Author: Mike Dunn
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Cope-ing with the Rains
If we can discover the meaning in the trilling of a frog, perhaps we may understand why it is for us not merely noise but a song of poetry and emotion. ~Adrian Forsyth My apologies for once again using this corny phrase in a post about Cope’s Gray Treefrogs (see previous post about their life Read more…
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Where Insects Fear to Tread
There is no exquisite beauty …without some strangeness. ~Edgar Allan Poe Part two of our quest for carnivorous plants took us first to the Green Swamp, a well-known NC Nature Conservancy preserve site in Brunswick and Columbus counties. It was getting late in the day, so we went straight to the main access point, a Read more…
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Bay Watch
Find one, and you’ll find yourself closer to the heart of what a Carolina Bay can be: an island of wildness in a world largely tamed, a few acres of the primeval past passed over by progress. ~T. Edward Nickens The North Carolina Botanical Garden has an exquisite collection of carnivorous plants, and they are Read more…
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Catching Gnats and Plucking Lichens
More than with most species of small birds, the attention and interest of the observer center about the nesting habits of the blue-gray gnatcatcher because of the great beauty of its nest. ~Francis Marion Weston, 1949 One of my favorite spring arrivals is the plucky little blue-gray gnatcatcher. It is tiny, but bold. It looks Read more…
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Unfurling
Only spread a fern frond over a man’s head and worldly cares are cast out, and freedom and beauty and peace come in. ~John Muir Before there is a fern frond, there is a fiddlehead. The curled tip of an unfurling fern frond resembles the curled ornamentation (called a scroll) on the end of a Read more…
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Swarming Season
The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist. For man it is to know that and to wonder at it. ~Jacques Yves Cousteau Just at closing one day this week, a coworker at the Garden sent an email alerting everyone to a swarm of honeybees just outside the back gate. I was Read more…
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The Spirit of Spring
April hath put a spirit of youth in everything. ~William Shakespeare Things have been so busy at work that I have failed miserably at getting outside with camera in hand to document some of the beauty around me. I made amends Saturday afternoon, and spent a few hours just wandering around the yard, observing and Read more…
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Spring Things
Now is the time of the illuminated woods… when every leaf glows like a tiny lamp. ~John Burroughs Things happen so fast this time of year… it is the time of change. Old things moving on, new things appearing. Many of the birds of winter are heading north and are being replaced by bright and Read more…
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Changing Weather
Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. ~John Ruskin We have had a variety of “good weather” lately, including a brief return to winter white yesterday morning. It had been predicted for several days, Read more…
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Roads End Naturalist 