Orange

My intention here was to post pictures of fall colors and title it so. The overriding theme, however, is orange. Each photo contains orange hues, your eye is drawn to that color. Until next time …Read more

Handsome Katydids and Pretty Spiders

It’s well known that late summer to early fall is the time of year when there are more insects about than perhaps at any other time of year. If you’ve been walking around outdoors lately you may have noticed many more grasshoppers than earlier in the season. Many of the grasshoppers and katydids that were hatched out this past spring and early summer have now grown into adults and are happily munching away at the grasses and tree leaves aroundRead more
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Last Week

The photos shown here are from last week, before Sandy rolled by bringing with her damp easterly, northeasterly, northerly, northwesterly and now still wet and nasty westerly winds. It will again be sunny and relatively warm, but until then have a look at a handful of pre-Sandy photos (just be glad you don’t live in New Jersey, or West Virginia, or….). And finally… What will turn up this week?  Read more
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The Changing of the Season

Each year around this time I post to this Journal and proclaim the beginning of fall. The calendar says it’s still summer but I’m always about a month ahead of the calendar and, frankly, so is the actual seasonal change. It was sometime during last week when I first felt the change. Maybe it was all of the caterpillar activity or the large number of grasshoppers that I’ve been seeing in their final instar, their last nymphal stage of developmentRead more

Brief Fall Update

Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, Northern Flickers, Winter Wrens, and Ruby-crowned Kinglets have all been seen here at the Museum. We’re still waiting to see the first White-throated Sparrow of the season. The cool weather brought in by a cold front yesterday had the local birds feeding heavily at the Bird Feeders in Catch the Wind. Even though the air was much cooler than the previous several days, the sun was intense, turtles were out taking advantage of its warming rays.Read more

Turning the Corner

Although it’s September, it was more than two weeks ago that I began to feel the change. Something was different. Oh sure, the temperatures were in the eighties for a few days and it felt really, really nice, but that’s not what I mean. We’ve crossed a line, internal triggers have been tripped, a biological turning point has been reached. The wildlife can feel it, the trees are reacting to it, and I feel it too. It’s not fall butRead more

Late Season Herps

The first couple of weeks in October were rather cloudy and wet. Whenever the sun did show itself, the turtles of the Wetlands took advantage of it by hauling out and basking in its warm rays. Young and old alike were out on all available perches. Mostly Yellow-bellied Turtles, but even a large snapper was spotted enjoying the brief bit of sun. The last few days of September and first couple of days of October brought many young treefrogs emergingRead more