Latest From The Blog

Finally spring has arrived! It’s time to start our gardens. There are so many important choices. Should we plant seeds in greenhouse containers first, or plant them directly into the garden soil? Should we plant seeds or purchase little plants from a nursery? And what...

With the trees still bare in most places, it’s a good time to notice last year’s birds’ nests. This tree is on a street in a 2005 housing development. This tree was probably planted when the new house was built. Notice that there are 3 small nests in the branches, 1...

The days are longer now, so it is much easier to walk in the evening. Have you noticed? The birds are more active and are probably migrating as I write this. The weather is better, too. So no excuses. To encourage you to move along this spring, I have designed two...

I had never heard of a hellebore before we moved south to West Virginia. They are originally a Eurasian flower from the family Ranunculaceae. Other more familiar flowers in that family are the buttercup (Ranunculus acris) and the Canadian anemone (Anemomone...

My feeder has a new pair of tufted Titmice, small birds like chickadees with a crown of light gray feathers on their heads. Yesterday evening I heard a killdeer calling on my Merlin bird identifier. It has started calling in the early evening. These two birds will...

Yesterday I was poking around my garden here in West Virginia and found that the daffodils and tulips were already above ground by several inches. The little white snowdrops are blooming already in my daughter’s garden. How can they endure the nighttime temperatures...

This week’s blog isn’t actually about a walk in the woods or along a road. It is about my bird feeder birds. They are giving me lots of pleasure as winter passes the last corner. They seem to be the most lively entertainment from nature at this time (although my...

Spanish moss hangs from a lot of trees in the southeast part of the United States. But it isn’t really moss. It is an air plant, which means that it gets all its nourishment from the air and from rainfall. Where we are vacationing here in the St. Augustine area,...

On a warm day we spotted this beautiful White Peacock Butterfly on our walk along the Indian River in Florida. These butterflies range from as far south as Argentina to the Carolinas in the U.S. That is why I have never seen one in Wisconsin or West Virginia. The...

My family gathered in Florida for the holidays to enjoy the balmy weather. Our dogs tumbled all over each other as we walked together down the sidewalk between a busy residential street and the Indian River on the East coast of Florida. We found a fat caterpillar with...

Recently I walked down to our children’s playground here in West Virginia, where there is a small patch of trees, a bookhouse and some play equipment. Last year the area behind the playground was full of trees. It was a rural woodland. Trees covered about 10 acres...

My daughter and I have been walking most December days on a farm in Kearneysville, located in the easternmost county of West Virginia, it is only about 65 miles from Washington, D.C. There is a lovely little brook that gurgles through our favorite corner of the hay...

When it is cold outside, I take pleasure in reading about nature. Yes, I still continue to walk. Sometimes I just walk through the unfinished parking lot of a nearby shopping mall, and sometimes I walk on my daughter’s farm. Either way, the usual buzz of insects is...

Our human lifestyle has become so fast with cell phones, computers, email and fast automobiles, that we miss most of what is right before our eyes. We just zip past it! Whoosh! For those of us who are walking and looking, there are lots of small things to notice....

I was planting acorns recently, and noticed how the falling leaves from nearby trees formed a soft protective layer over the acorns. Many animals and plants prepare themselves for cold winter months. They are vulnerable to predation during this time by birds,...

As we walk along our late fall trails, what insects are we seeing? Insects are cold blooded, so when it gets cold, they can’t move quickly to get away from predators. It is a dangerous time for them. In spite of that, many will come out in the middle of a sunny day to...

As the days get shorter, we need to walk earlier in the day. This is always an inconvenience, if you are working a nine to five schedule. The sun just doesn’t hang around into the late evening. The remaining birds, or the newly arrived birds that will overwinter here,...

For this walk you will want to take a small bag to collect fruits. At this time of year I think of seeds when I eat an apple. Buried inside the fruit there are always seeds that are carefully protected by that delicious fruit. And where do we throw the “core” when we...