Tag Archive | Nature Story
The Tick Terminator
Looking out my Florida room window into my backyard, I was pleasantly surprised to see North America’s only marsupial in my garden – the opossum. Normally, nocturnal, it must have been hungry to be out during the daylight scavenging for a bite to eat. There is plenty to munch on – frogs, lizards, snakes, large […]
The Noisy Hawk
Stepping out of my Florida home one morning, I hear the scream-like call of the red-shouldered hawk, a species known for its loud raucous cries and sharp whistles that can be heard from a mile away. I watch it fly over our homes and into a laurel oak tree where it rests briefly then flies […]
British Soldiers
I love finding a bit of color in the drab winter landscape. The eye-catching British soldier lichen pops out in the winter woodlands. It grows on fallen decaying logs and tree stumps. Lichens are two organisms that live together for the benefit of each other. Microscopically, you would see a fungus with algae growing on […]
The Turkey’s Tail
The naked winter forest in North America provides an opportunity to find cocoons of overwintering moth larvae, dried wasp galls and fungi that are often overlooked by the average hiker. I love spending the winter in the woodlands to find these organisms. During a recent walk in the Maryland woods, I came across a fungus […]
The Vine I Despise
Walking in a winter wetland forest, in the eastern U.S. my eyes are drawn to green leafless vines growing along the edge of the trail. Numerous spiky thorns protrude from the green stems and small clusters of bluish-black berries dangle in the light breeze. It is the nasty catbriar. Its thorns remind me of a […]
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