Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Lilac Tommies

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“Green winter, green graveyard” is an old adage carrying a hint of foreboding. I suspect I am just one among many fellow Island sufferers, who wait and hope to step back into their previous...

Great horned owls

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After 20 years of active birding on the Vineyard, I’ve encountered pretty much all of our regularly occurring bird species, most of our “rare but regular” vagrants, even a few of the outrageous rarities...

A dry summer

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Here we are in September’s golden splendor, contemplating the season’s passing and reviewing the summer during its final weeks. While we hope to regain a measure of peaceful quiet, and life returns to whatever...

Grasshoppers

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When I began studying the Vineyard’s grasshoppers about six years ago, I knew almost nothing about them. There was only one species I could put a name to. I didn’t have any sense of...

Marsh mallows

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Cutline quote: “Stands of marsh mallow ring Island’s coastal ponds.” Thursday is the first day of the annual Agricultural Fair of the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society, running through Sunday. Everybody, see you there! Marsh Mallows The Island’s...

Cicadas

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Often heard but seldom seen, cicadas are a dominant feature in the natural soundscape of the Vineyard in summer. The drone of lustful male cicadas, usually emanating from high up in the tree canopy,...

Chloealtis: To find the grasshopper, you must be the grasshopper

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About six years ago, I began the long-term project of trying to learn what I could about the Vineyard’s orthoptera — that is, its crickets, katydids, and grasshoppers. While a number of casual reports...

Ahh summertime.

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As you have no doubt noticed, perennial garden standbys have advanced their bloom times, leaving gardeners to wonder whether their gardens will have any color at all come August. Shifting seasons of bloom Rambler roses, platycodon,...

Potter wasps

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The Island boasts some fine ceramic artists, and some of them aren’t human. Potter wasps are a division within the wasp family Vespidae, which also includes the more familiar bald-faced “hornet” (technically a wasp), yellow...

Dioctria hyalipennis

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In my effort to study insects, the goal is simply to learn at least one new thing every day. Over time, in theory, the result will be … slightly less ignorance. Too many species!...

Welcome, summer

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The intensity of light, the long evenings, the time of haymaking and wild strawberries, the shimmering, electric quality of the ultraviolet coursing through all light-driven beings — these combine to transform the Northern Hemisphere...

True bugs

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As informal shorthand for nearly any kind of insect, the word “bug” gets used by pretty much everyone. Serious entomologists sometimes even make a verb of it — “bugging” — to describe the activity...

A lost generation of gardeners

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It is important to share what it is to have a garden, to grow things yourself to eat, or to experience pleasure in being outside, slowing down, and creating your own entertainment and the...

Dreamy duskywing

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I’ve been trying — with little success — to clean up a butterfly mystery. The subject is a homely-looking brown job that most people probably wouldn’t even recognize as a butterfly: the dreamy duskywing. “Duskywing”...

Bibio femoratus

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“Swarms”: The word keeps cropping up in phone calls and emails, asking me to explain the astonishing explosion of black flying insects that has been apparent at various places around the Island. A sport...

Protecting chickens from hawks and downplaying the lawn

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Put Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston on your mainland horticultural destination maps. It was a pleasure to take in the excellent primrose show there recently; also enjoyable to meet and chat with prizewinning...

Three azures

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Perhaps the most common question I hear at this time of year is, “What are those little blue butterflies that are all over the place?” I wish there were an answer that would be...

A perfect day for bug-hunting

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My columns typically focus on one particular species that I’ve been able to learn something about. But sometimes my time in the field gets so fascinating that I gush about the overall experience. Last Sunday...

Spring pruning

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Pruning is a topic commonly loaded with anxiety, or mystery, for many. Few winters will have passed without leaving their damaging mark; the last was characterized by high winds. Much spring garden work relates...

The ichneumons are here!

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If you object to wasps because they sting, you’re in luck! The largest family in the wasp world has only a few members capable of stinging, and it also includes some of the most...