Grasshoppers in March

We generally associate the presence of Orthopterans (grasshoppers, crickets, katydids) with hot summer days and balmy August nights.  Howeve...

First Swallows

Tree swallows spend the winter along the Gulf Coast, across Florida or in Mexico, much farther north than their cousins (barn, cliff, bank, ...

Mental Illness & Public Safety

This week's air tragedy in France was apparently the result of an unrecognized or unreported mental illness in one of the pilots; that f...

Reading Outside

I often read outside, especially on calm, mild, sunny days.  Sometimes I take a nature magazine or a medical journal but it's usually th...

A Brief Intense Upslope

After a warm, sunny week, yesterday dawned cool and cloudy along the Colorado Front Range; periods of light drizzle moistened the pavement a...

Our Fickle Bushtits

The bird population on our Littleton, Colorado, farm is typical of other properties in the Temperate Zone of Western North America.  We host...

The Sixth Mass Extinction

Those who study the natural history of our planet have identified five mass extinctions since the dawn of the Paleozoic Era (see Earth's...

Cabbage Whites

Looking across our Littleton, Colorado, farm yesterday afternoon, a dozen or more cabbage whites fluttered amidst the greening landscape.  G...

The Casiquiare Connection

We humans have long dug canals to connect watersheds, thereby improving irrigation or shortening navigation routes.  Examples range from sma...

Duck Count Doldrums

Despite the warm, sunny weather (or perhaps because of it) the March waterfowl count at South Platte Park was rather dull this morning.  The...

The Nature of Fjords

Fjords are steep-walled, U-shaped, glacial-carved coastal valleys.  Especially common along the rocky coasts of Norway, Iceland, Greenland, ...

Two Seasons in One

Over the past few years, especially during the past two winters, weather conditions have been dramatically different in western and eastern ...

Zealandia

Zealandia is a long, relatively narrow fragment of continental crust that split from Antarctica early in the Cretaceous Period (about 120 mi...

Geology of Vanuatu Archipelago

This past week, the Vanuatu Archipelago of the southwestern Pacific Ocean has been in the news due to massive destruction wrought by Typhoon...

Reunion on the Platte

By mid February, migrant sandhill cranes begin to gather along an 80-mile stretch of the Platte River, in south-central Nebraska.  They are ...

Wildlife in the Mist

Low clouds, patchy fog and a cool mist enveloped central Missouri this morning and, as I reached Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area, a barred ow...

Beyond the Mud

Across the American Heartland, March is known for its muddy landscapes, cold rain, wet snow and raw, windy days.  But, to the naturalist, Ma...

Speed Birding

Most of our National Wildlife Refuges, Conservation Areas and large nature preserves are accessed by a network of graveled roads which permi...

The Chad Basin

The Chad Basin is both a topographic and a geologic sedimentary basin that covers nearly 8% of the African Continent, stretching from southe...

First Wave of Pelicans

Light, patchy fog enveloped the Missouri River Valley just after dawn this morning.  At the Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area, flocks of geese ...

Romance or Predation?

By early March, many permanent avian residents of the American Midwest have already paired off for the breeding season; some, like geese and...

Summer's Leading Edge

Those of us who live in the Temperate Zones of Planet Earth generally recognize four seasons, based on astronomical, biological, meteorologi...

Canvasbacks at Eagle Bluffs

In yesterday's post, I failed to include canvasbacks among my sightings at Eagle Bluffs (the error has since been corrected).  In fact, ...

Snows in the Snow

It was cold and snowy at Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area this morning; the air temperature was 20 degrees F.  Canada geese and mallards domin...

Black on White

Crossing the wintry Midwest today, there were few signs of life on the snow-laden farmlands; even the ubiquitous red-tailed hawks and Europe...

The March of Winter

March may be the first calendar month of spring but winter still grips most of the U.S.  Here in northeastern Ohio, the latest bout of snow ...