Category: nature
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Ground-nesting Bees
A couple weeks ago at work, one of my coworkers mentioned he had found the largest group of ground-nesting bees he’d ever seen, right behind our office. I peeked out the window but couldn’t see anything. When I went outside, though, I finally saw what he meant. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of little…
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Ranger Life
One of the central parts of my job is opening the park every day. All of us who are on duty for a given day unlock the gates and then make our way to the Visitor Center. Once we’ve opened our offices and deactivated the alarms, we go on a walk around the ponds and…
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Duck Envy
I love the wintertime. Not just because I enjoy cozying up in cold weather, although that’s pretty nice– and Luna gets extra cuddly too when it’s cold out. But my main reason for loving winter is that’s when lots of duck species show up in my area. Huge flocks (or rafts) sometimes show up in…
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Monhegan Island Wildlife
[Note: this post was originally written in 2023, and now a year later I’m finally posting it while back at Monhegan!] I’m spending a week with family on Monhegan Island, ten miles off the coast of Maine. The habitat up here in Maine is much different from the warm, moist Mid-Atlantic where I live. There…
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Bat Scat
As a naturalist, I spend a lot more time poking around in other creatures’ excrement (also known as scat) than most people. I love finding clues to the animal’s identity and diet, like the fish scales and bones in an otter’s scat, or how when the pawpaws are ripe, suddenly every pile of fox poop…
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Blogtober- Foul Odor
I usually think of flowers as lovely, sweet-smelling decorations. They’re actually plants’ reproductive organs, though, and some are distinctly weird. The fragrant, colorful ones like roses and asters attract bees and butterflies for pollination. However, other kinds of flowers are downright stinky, because they evolved to attract a whole different set of insects. Rather than…
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Blogtober: transformation
So I’m a couple days late on this post. I’ve been working on a post about transformation for several days now, but the particular interpretation i chose is still too big to handle quickly. I bit off more than I can chew for a quick daily post. So I’ll try a slightly different interpretation. Never…
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Blogtober- Decay
It’s been a pretty good year for mushrooms. I’ve found bright red chanterelles, gooey inkcaps, and more. But the weirdest and maybe creepiest has been the globby fungus I found oozing dark amber liquid near the bottom of a tree. I think it’s Pseudoinonotus dryadaeus, also known as Oak Bracket. I don’t know whether the…
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Blogtober: spiders
I have a sign in my apartment that says, “Keep calm, it’s just a spider.” I was torn about whether to buy it when I saw it. Of course I think that nobody needs to get upset at the sight of a spider. I am more than happy to be the spider catch-and-releaser. But on…
The Contented Naturalist 