The Great Spangled Fritillary!
The Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele) and other native butterflies provide added splashes of color on summer days as they flit about our flower gardens, parks and roadsides. Butterflies don’t need much to thrive in our immediate vicinity. As long as you take extra care to plant native flowering plants that provide healthy foods for these animals (rather than non-native ornamental plants that don’t offer such benefits to our insects) and don’t spray pesticides, butterflies will be there to brighten your day (and pollinate your other flowers and veggies)!
Read MoreSpring Blooms in Wild America
In the spring of 1953, Roger Tory Peterson and his British friend James Fisher embarked on a thrilling 100 day, trip to explore and document the Wilds of North America. Their excursion took them from Newfoundland to Florida, the heart of Mexico to the dry Southwest, the Pacific Northwest to the Pribilof Islands of Alaska, and the numerous memories of the splendors they encountered were later documented in a book titled Wild America, first published in 1955. Among the many things that Peterson and Fisher recorded along their journey were blossoming spring flowers, and this pen and ink drawing...
Read MoreDowny Woodpecker
The Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) is an industrious little bird that frequents parks and woodlots throughout much of North America. While often spotted at backyard feeders with similarly sized chickadees and nuthatches, this black-and-white woodpecker is also at home on tiny branches where it can be seen acrobatically foraging for insect larvae. Roger Tory Peterson described this bird’s call as “a rapid whinny of notes, descending in pitch.” Keep an eye and an ear out for this charismatic little bird; its striking plumage, shrill song and tree-trunk tapping should...
Read MoreBlack-capped Chickadee
This may be the last look at a seasonal Sunday bird with snow this winter as it is now meteorological spring! Now that we have crossed into March, cavity-nesting birds like this Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) will be looking for nesting sites. If you enjoy hosting wild birds by providing nest boxes, now is the time to get them ready. Have you ever put out dog fur for birds to use as nesting material? Chickadees, and other small songbirds that use nest boxes and cavities like the Tufted Titmouse, will take fur that you put out in say, an empty suet cage, and use it to line...
Read MoreRoly-poly-pede
This Giant Millipede (Narceus americanus) doesn’t really have 1,000 legs. However, like all millipedes, it has two pairs of extremities on each of its body segments (centipedes always have only a single pair per body segment). Unlike their centipede ‘cousins’, millipedes lack the modified jaw-like first pair of legs that predatory centipedes use to catch and sometimes envenomate their prey. Instead, millipedes defend themselves by rolling into a tight spiral and/or using chemical defenses that can include cyanide! Worst case scenario, handling one of these beautiful ‘roly-poly-pedes’...
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