Category: Natural History
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November Amphibians
…more different species of animals have been recorded at the Reserve than in any other comparably-sized area in the entire Piedmont. ~NC Botanical Garden web site regarding Mason Farm Biological Reserve It is an idyllic place in an otherwise rapidly developing region of our state…it is Mason Farm Biological Reserve. Mason Farm is about 367 Read more…
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This is Nuts, Part 2
Each year insects heavily attack northern red oak acorns and destroy a large percentage of them, greatly reducing the number of acorns available to produce seedlings and feed wildlife. ~Lester P. Gibson No, this isn’t what you think…it really is a post about acorns (I need a break from the other nuttiness). It is a Read more…
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This is Nuts!
I am looking for acorns these days, to sow on the Walden lot, but can find very few sound ones…I found by trial that the last or apparently sound acorns would always sink in water, while the rotten ones would float, and I have accordingly offered five cents a quart for such as will sink. Read more…
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Surprise Endings
I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars… ~Charles Darwin, 1860 So strange are the habits of certain groups of wasps that they have caused many a person to look upon them in disbelief Read more…
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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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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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Roads End Naturalist 