Matt Pelikan
Wild Side: Butterfly milkweed
If there is a particular plant worthy of being named the Vineyard’s National Wildflower, it is surely butterfly milkweed, Asclepias tuberosa. It’s a plant...
Wild Side: East Coast grasshoppers
As interesting as I find grasshoppers to be, I have to admit that as a group, these are not particularly colorful insects. In keeping...
Wild Side: How long will it stay?
The past couple of weeks have been fine ones for me, replete with interesting wildlife sightings and opportunities to explore new or inaccessible areas....
Wild Side: Leafhoppers
Insects are currently enjoying a moment of mostly positive media attention, thanks to the remarkable mass emergence of periodical cicadas in parts of the...
Wild Side: Breeding birds
As the month of May winds down, the bird breeding season peaks. Here’s a report on the nesting activity in and around our yard...
Wild Side: Dung flies
In the natural world, everything is a resource. Even the most trivial or improbable niche has its occupier. Perhaps the most glaring example of...
Wild Side: Elegant field sparrows
I have a weakness for sparrows, those “little brown jobs” that are the bane of beginning birders due to their apparent absence of any...
Wild Side: Mysterious fly
As a student of insects, I spend a lot of time contemplating the daunting slopes of my personal Everest of ignorance. The class Insecta...
Wild Side: Pygmy grasshoppers
The most favorite of my many favorite insects is surely the crested pygmy grasshopper, Nomotettix cristatus. It’s probably the smallest Orthoptera occurring on Martha’s...
Wild Side: Killdeer plovers
Three species of so-called “banded plovers” occur regularly on Martha’s Vineyard. Of these, the piping plover, an intensively managed species that nests in modest...
Wild Side: Winter ants
In a recent column about feeding wild birds (bit.ly/30c79CX,) I pointed out that food you put out for birds often ends up feeding other...
Wild Side: Harlequin ducks
Waterfowl — and about 40 species of ducks, geese, and swans have been recorded on Martha’s Vineyard — may seem to be a boring...
Wild Side: Start small
It’s the time of year when I receive many inquiries about feeding wild birds: Is it ecologically helpful or harmful? Should I feed birds,...
Wild Side: American kestrel
While snowy owls and a remarkable invasion of finch species have dominated the attention of birders over the past few months, an attractive and...
Wild Side: Insect IDs
Twenty years ago, it would have been nearly impossible for an amateur naturalist like me to study insects with any success. A few groups,...
Wild Side: Cooper’s hawks
Cooper’s hawks are good-sized birds, distinctly smaller than a red-tailed hawk but about the size of a crow. Compared to either of those familiar...
Wild Side: The great fly hunt
“Think like your prey,” say the hunters and fisherpeople. It’s good advice for naturalists, too.
I can’t say it has helped me with fishing. The...
Wild Side: Fungus gnats
Nearly everybody has at least a vague notion of what a fly is. To a biologist, “fly” means a member of the insect order...
Wild Side: Lapland longspur
On Sunday, Nov. 8, I took advantage of ridiculously fine weather for a quick birding and bugging trip to Katama. In addition to the...
Wild Side: Listen for chirping
As we move into November, there is almost always a dramatic shift in the weather on the Vineyard, and with that, a shift in...