Author: Mike Dunn
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A Swirl of Swifts
Their twittering notes and whizzing wings create a musical, but wild, continued roar. The twittering, whizzing roar continues to increase; the revolving circle fast assumes a funnel shape, moving downward until the point reaches the hollow in the stub, pouring its living mass therein until the last bird dropped out of sight. ~Chief Pokagon, of… Read more…
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Another One Hundred!
During all these years there existed within me a tendency to follow Nature in her walks. ~John James Audubon Per my habit of posting such milestones, it is time to recognize another one hundred posts gone by. This makes 400 posts since this blog was born shortly into my retirement. Like the others before it,… Read more…
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BugFest Residue, Part 2
Nature, in her blind search for life, has filled every possible cranny of the earth with some sort of fantastic creature. ~Joseph Wood Krutch Here are a few more of the fantastical critters from our scouring of the woods and fields for BugFest… The stars of this year’s caterpillar table were several huge polyphemus moth… Read more…
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BugFest Residue
If you have a chance to play in nature, if you are sprayed by a beetle, if the color of a butterfly’s wing comes off on your fingers, if you watch a caterpillar spin its cocoon– you come away with a sense of mystery and uncertainty. ~Michael Crichton BugFest, the NC Museum of Natural Sciences’… Read more…
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Shedding Light on the Subject
The insect world is nature`s most astonishing phenomenon. Nothing is impossible to it; the most improbable things occur there. ~Rachel Carson Last week we were looking for caterpillars for this past weekends’ BugFest event, and ended up making a couple of nocturnal excursions (it is often easier to see cryptic caterpillars at night by the… Read more…
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Transformation
In all works on Natural History, we constantly find details of the marvelous adaptation of animals to their food, their habits, and the localities in which they are found. ~Alfred Russel Wallace, 1853 It is that time of year again…yep, the museum’s annual BugFest event is tomorrow, Saturday, September 17. Join us for an incredible… Read more…
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Humming Along
One minute poised in midair, apparently motionless before a flower while draining the nectar from its deep cup—though the humming of its wings tells that it is suspended there by no magic—the next instant it has flashed out of sight as if a fairy’s wand had made it suddenly invisible. ~Neltje Blanchan, 1923 It seems… Read more…
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What a Way to Go
Nature is so much worse than science fiction. ~Quote attributed to a student in an introductory entomology course We discovered a small caterpillar last week that was adorned with some unusual accessories, and that usually isn’t a good thing if you are a caterpillar. I think it was either a variable oakleaf, or a double-lined… Read more…
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From Beast to Beauty
It has to get ugly before it gets pretty. ~Nicholas Sparks Well, that is certainly the case for at least one species of butterfly here in the woods… the red-spotted purple, Limenitis arthemis astyanax. This common species is probably not considered beautiful by most observers during its pre-butterfly stages. It is a bird poop mimic… Read more…
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In an Instant
Nature taking its course – hunter and prey, the endless circle of life and death. ~Stephanie Meyer Melissa found some cool caterpillars on a Viburnum this weekend while we were walking in a city park in Richmond. I walked over to take a look and saw a beautiful hummingbird clearwing larva, Hemaris thysbe, in the classic… Read more…
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Roads End Naturalist 