Category: Natural History
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Big Cypress
If, in the name of progress, we want to destroy everything beautiful in our world, and contaminate the air we breathe, and the water we drink, then we are in trouble. ~Marjory Stoneman Douglas, in response to critics saying that conservationists were trying to halt progress in Florida by preserving Big Cypress Swamp Big Cypress… Read more…
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Everglades
There are no other Everglades in the world. They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth, remote, never wholly known. ~Marjory Stoneman Douglas, author of The Everglades: River of Grass, 1947 Sitting by the fire yesterday afternoon, I can hardly believe I spent last week in the Florida heat… Read more…
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Color Me Cryptic
Theories pass. The frog remains. ~Jean Rostand, French biologist and philosopher While walking down by the intermittent stream in the woods this week, I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned, but didn’t see anything at first. When I stepped in the direction of the flash, it happened… Read more…
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The Procession
Come with me into the woods where spring is advancing, as it does, no matter what, not being singular or particular, but one of the forever gifts, and certainly visible. ~Mary Oliver I have been busy these past couple of weeks, busier than I like, especially for this time of year. It is the time… Read more…
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Meandering at Mattamuskeet
By thus coordinating the management of the refuge with the natural cycles of plant and animal life, the Fish and Wildlife Service has developed Mattamuskeet to the point where it now supports much larger flocks of waterfowl than came to this refuge in former years. ~Rachel Carson, on a discussion of managing the lake for… Read more…
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Bitternsweet Memories
Life wants you to have gratitude for the gift of living. Treasure every second. ~ Bryant McGill The season is about over. It is hard to believe I just finished what is probably my last tour for this winter season at Mattamuskeet and Pocosin Lakes. But, if it is to be the last, at least… Read more…
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Arrows of the Sea
Over the unlucky school of fish is a bewildering maze of soaring, circling birds, pouring down out of the sky in rapid succession, plunging into the water like so many projectiles and sending columns of water and spray many feet into the air like the spouting of a school of whales. ~Arthur Cleveland Bent, 1922,… Read more…
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Pelagic Birding
You may know the true observer, not by the big things he sees, but by the little things; and then not by the things he sees with effort and premeditation, but by his effortless, unpremeditated seeing—the quick, spontaneous action of his mind in the presence of natural objects. John Burroughs, 1905 I had the good… Read more…
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Grass with Eyes
He prefers solitude, and leads the eccentric life of a recluse, “forgetting the world, and by the world forgot.” To see him at his ordinary occupation, one might fancy him shouldering some heavy responsibility, oppressed with a secret, or laboring in the solution of a problem of vital consequence. He stands motionless, with his head… Read more…
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When the Geese are Gone
Watching the animals come and go, and feeling the land swell up to meet them and then feeling it grow still at their departure, I came to think of the migrations as breath, as the land breathing. ~Barry Lopez What a difference a week makes. Less than seven days had passed between my last two… Read more…
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Roads End Naturalist 