Category: Natural History
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Tiny Dancers
Some people look at big things, and other people look at very small things, but in a sense, we’re all trying to understand the world around us. ~Roderick MacKinnon Yesterday we hiked over to Morgan Creek at work to prepare for some upcoming trips with summer campers where we will sample the stream for macro-invertebrates.… Read more…
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Land Shark
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time, is wetter water, slimier slime! ~Rupert Brooke I remember the first time I found one, years ago, I wasn’t sure what it was…some sort of alien creature? What impressed me was how long it was, and how slimy. And that head, that strange, oddly-moving head! Turns out they are… Read more…
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A Festival for Bears
May this intelligent animal always have a place. We need to better understand bears. ~Mike McIntosh Last weekend was the third annual Black Bear Festival in Plymouth, NC. I have missed the previous ones due to trips to Yellowstone, but I finally managed to visit this year. I was curious how the festival was organized… Read more…
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Those Eyes
Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant? ~Henry David Thoreau On any woodland walk in the warm months, you will run into a variety of spider silk across your path. And so it was recently on a walk in our woods. It was mostly… Read more…
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Hatching
The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell. ~Zora Neale Hurston A quick update on the tulip-tree silk moth eggs from my last post – they hatched! The moth laid eggs inside the container on the night of May 19. They started hatching early in the morning… Read more…
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Giants of the Night
From behind its head came two large “feathers” that projected forward…This butterfly has antlers, I thought in awe. ~John Cody, moth artist, describing his first childhood encounter with a giant silkmoth Something caught me eye one morning as I approached the outside door leading upstairs to my office. It looked a bit like a dried… Read more…
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They Are Catching More Than Just Gnats
may my heart always be open to little birds who are the secrets of living ~ee cummings Here is a long overdue update on those little birds that nested just outside the garden driveway gate at the Botanical Garden…I am happy to report these diligent parents were apparently successful in rearing their young. You may… 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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Roads End Naturalist 