Category: Trip report
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Year of the Grizzly
Bears keep me humble. They help me to keep the world in perspective and to understand where I fit on the spectrum of life. We need to preserve the wilderness and its monarchs for ourselves, and for the dreams of children. We should fight for these things as if our lives depended on it, because… Read more…
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Back in Paradise
I am back in Yellowstone leading a group, so posts will be limited for a few days. Great to be here so early, the brief season between winter and summer…absolutely beautiful. Look for more when I return. Read more…
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Dutch Treat
One Touch of Nature Makes the Whole World Kin. ~William Shakespeare I spent a couple of days late last week with some clients from the Netherlands and a Dutch friend of theirs that now lives in North Carolina. They had been with me for a couple of days last Fall, but arrived a day before… Read more…
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A Sense of Place
Being aware of the splendor of the seasons, of the natural world, makes us understand man’s critical need for wild places. Living with familiar things and moving in the seasons can fulfill that profound need common to us all: a sense of place. ~Jo Northrop It was time. Time for another trip to that place… Read more…
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Let the Blooms Begin
The flowers of late winter and early spring occupy places in our hearts well out of proportion to their size. ~Gertrude S. Wister Spring is a wonderful season for so many reasons, not the least of which is the explosion of wildflowers that spreads across our state beginning in February and lasting through May. One… Read more…
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A Mirror in the Woods
Spring comes earliest to the bottoms of stagnant pools – there no cool winds blow – no hoar frosts penetrate – but they grow protected as under a glass. There are fewer disturbing influences to rob them of the full advantage of the sun’s increased altitude. ~Henry David Thoreau Conservation groups, in partnership with Partners… Read more…
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Trip Report – Pungo
Last week I had another group going to the Pungo Unit of Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. They had been scheduled for the prior week, but the rare coastal snow storm had made it impossible for them to get to Pungo. I headed down the day before to scout the roads that had been so… Read more…
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Trip Report – a Frozen Mattamuskeet and Pungo
To me, the beautiful and ever-changing patterns formed in lake ice – and in snowflakes, the ice of the sky – are winter’s “bloom,” corresponding to the flowering plants of summer. ~Stephen Hatch I had another trip to North Carolina’s winter wonderland this past weekend. And a wonderland it was…Lake Mattamuskeet was largely frozen, a… Read more…
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One Town’s Waste is Another Species’ Treasure
Without a doubt, the highlight of my trip to Florida to visit cool birding sites and see lots of birds…..was to a wastewater treatment “plant”. It seems as though it is common practice, at least in that part of Florida, to create wetlands as part of wastewater treatment for municipalities. The benefits to humans are… Read more…
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This Refuge “Merritts” a Visit
High on my list of places to visit on my trip to Florida was Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center. The refuge is huge, over 140,000 acres, consisting of a variety of habitats – coastal dunes, saltwater estuaries and marshes, freshwater impoundments, scrub, pine flatwoods, and hardwood hammocks. Winter brings… Read more…
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Roads End Naturalist 