Roads End Naturalist

Exploring the natural world as we wander at the end of the road

Category: Natural History

  • Small Wonders

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    Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain. ~Henry David Thoreau The heat this past week has been pretty oppressive. So, I needed to remind myself that, even though there are not groups of Black Bears feeding… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Fourth of July Bearworks

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    May this intelligent animal always have a place. We need to better understand bears. ~Mike McIntosh Hope you had a good holiday weekend. Mine was special in many ways – good food, good friends, and a memorable trip to my favorite place in the East, Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. It was a long day… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • When Predators Become Prey

    If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos. ~ E. O. Wilson Although my woods lack the charismatic fauna found in Yellowstone – wolves, elk, grizzlies – there is… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Cope-ing with Night Sounds

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    The spring breeding chorus also provides evening entertainment to re-affirm our connection with nature. ~Encyclopedia of Life on one of the benefits of Gray Treefrogs The rains over the weekend brought out an intense display of night sounds that could be heard through the closed windows and doors. Friends came over for dinner Saturday night… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Faces of Yellowstone

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    There are so many people here this week. So many faces. Many are international visitors. I guess many are in Yellowstone for the first time. I realized how important faces are to us humans, how that is what we usually look at first in another person, and how it can often tell us so much.… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Babes in Paradise

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    This may not be what you expected if this came up in a Google search. My last post was about being back in Yellowstone… my paradise. It being early June, the park is full of babes… of the wildlife kind. I have seen many in my first couple of days, many too far away to… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Back in Paradise

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       A quick post from my favorite place. Arrived yesterday in Yellowstone. Surprisingly hot for this time of year here… 87° in Bozeman. But, the park continues to amaze.   Relatively little wildlife on my way in yesterday save for the usual bear jams near Roosevelt. But then late in the day… two wolves in Lamar… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Lethal Beauty

    The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, incredibly magnificent world in itself. – Henry Miller Something caught my eye yesterday as I walked toward the house along the stone steps. It was on the tip of a leaf of one of the wildflowers yet… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • A Fiery Combination

    Nature feeds her children chiefly with color. ~Henry David Thoreau My wildflower garden is between seasons right now, so color is hard to come by. The whites, light blues, and pinkish-reds of spring’s onslaught of ephemerals and early bloomers has passed, and the bright yellows, oranges, and kaleidoscope of colors of summer flowers has not… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • The Struggles of Forest Birds

    How completely the life of a bird revolves about its nest, its home! In the case of the wood thrush, its life and joy seem to mount higher and higher as the nest prospers. ~John Burroughs, essay on Wood Thrush, 1871 On a walk in the woods last week, I spotted a small bird that… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn