When I leave home to walk to school, my spouse always says to me, “Chet, keep your eyelids up, and see what you can see.”
Nature
Red-tailed hawk in New York City • Photo by D. Fletcher (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Aurelia aurita • Photo by Alexander Vasenin (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Jellyfish just go with the flow
It was the summer of the jellyfish. On almost every retreating tide the beach was jam-packed with jellies. A walk at water’s edge required constant attention to what was underfoot; few experiences are more unpleasant than stepping barefoot into a quivering cushion of jellyfish jelly.
Photo by Terry Ballard (CC BY 2.0)
15,000 years or so in the life of Scratch Flat
On this day exactly 200 years ago Gilbert White, the vicar of Selborne village in England, wrote this in his naturalist’s journal: “Made black currant-jelly. Finished cutting the tall hedges. Gathered some lavender.”
Common snapping turtle • Photo by Greg Schechter (CC BY 2.0)
Intruding upon another, more patient age
If you are an early morning walker in late spring or early summer, and if your path takes you by sandy soil near a pond, and if the God of Reptiles is awake and minding his business, then you are sure to come upon a snapping turtle laying eggs.
Photo by Holly Mandarich on Unsplash
Women claim a place in the wild
Back in the early ’70s I had a student named Kathleen B. who went to live in the woods. She moved out of the college dormitory and set up a tent in a forested part of the campus, in a clearing under white pines. Alone.
Photo by Toimetaja tõlkebüroo on Unsplash
Every man (and squirrel) to his own taste
Two sounds of autumn are unmistakable, says naturalist Hal Borland, “the hurrying rustle of crisp leaves blown along the street or road by a gusty wind, and the gabble of a flock of migrating geese.”
Desmodus rotundus • Photo by Uwe Schmidt (CC BY-SA 4.0)
For the poor bat, life is mostly bad press
As far as I know, Ogden Nash never wrote a verse about bats, but if he had it might have gone like this: Nobody likes a bat And that’s that.
Photo by Oxford University Museum of Natural History (CC BY 2.0)
Summer bugs, summer pleasures
Summer memories. Of firefly evenings long ago in Tennessee. Lingering twilight, dark pines, crickets singing, stars just coming into the sky. Running on the long, sloping lawn catching up “lightnin’ bugs” in our hands. We squeezed them gently between our fingers to set their tiny fires alight, or dumped them by the dozens into a jar to make a lantern.
Photo by Vincent van Zalinge on Unsplash
Mr. Toad doesn’t live there anymore
Water Rat and Mole were sitting on the River Bank listening to the sound of the wind in the willows. “Whatever became of old Mr. Badger?” asked the Rat.
Photo by Brian Jones on Unsplash
Winter’s sparse palette
October blew through the trees of New England like a slow hurricane of color. Gone now, all gone, leaving behind more brown litter than Hurricane Hugo. Now the naturalist must seek his color in bits and pieces.