Matt Pelikan
Wild Side: Andrena nubecula
Yellow is the signature color of Martha’s Vineyard in late September: goldenrod is blooming everywhere! These members of the aster family — somewhere around...
Wild Side: The cicada that sang in the morning
On Thursday, August 25, I met with high school science teacher Anna Cotton to discuss a natural history classroom project she’s developing. We briefly...
Wild Side: Eastern tiger swallowtail
This has, by and large, been a pitiful season for butterflies. As I wrote in my July 12 column, I believe butterfly numbers in...
Wild Side: Leafcutter bees
With more than 180 species in nearly 30 genera, the bee fauna of Martha’s Vineyard presents an amazing diversity of appearance, life history, and...
Wild Side: The Carolina grasshopper
The Carolina grasshopper, Dissosteira carolina, ranks among the most common species of Orthoptera on Martha’s Vineyard, and also among the most easily found and...
Wild Side: Where are the butterflies?
Among the most common wildlife questions that I get these days runs about like this: “I’m hardly seeing any butterflies. Are their numbers down?”
It’s...
Wild Side: Our Vineyard bioblitz
For centuries at least, there has existed a tradition of amateur study of nature. During the 20th century, observing nature achieved real popularity as...
Wild Side: The Breeding Bird Survey
For about 20 years now, I’ve spent one morning every June running the Vineyard’s Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) route. Coordinated by the U.S. Geological...
Wild Side: Hitchhiking grasshoppers
My friend Margaret Curtin is a top-shelf naturalist. I closely follow her posts to the “citizen science” platform iNaturalist.org, where she helps me and...
Wild Side: Face to face with bees
You probably think about bees from time to time. Their role as pollinators has come increasingly into the public eye in recent years, while...
Wild Side: One for the books
There is some really weird stuff out there.
Take the insect order Strepsiptera, commonly known as “twisted-wing insects” because of the bizarre wing form shown...
Wild Side: Eastern carpenter bees
Pretty much everyone, I expect, has at least a nodding acquaintance with our large carpenter bees. Our sole species, Xylocopa virginica, the eastern carpenter...
Wild Side: The willow
Saturday, April 2, could have been disappointing for an insect photographer. True, an early overcast gave way to a strong, early spring sun, and...
Wild Side: It’s here!
The ebb and flow of the seasons ranks among the most predictable aspects of the natural world. Astronomers can pin, to the second, each...
Wild Side: The blue jay
For various reasons, I’ve stuck pretty close to home this winter, doing most of my naturalizing in or near our tiny yard in Oak...
Wild Side: Ode to wasps
Amid all the gloom that currently dominates the national media, the New York Times ran a real day-brightener (for me, at least) on Feb....
Wild Side: Tracking the elusive fox sparrow
I wouldn’t call the fox sparrow a rare bird on Martha’s Vineyard. I can’t think of a winter that yielded no records at all...
Wild Side: To feed or not to feed
Longtime readers know my ambivalence about the practice of feeding wild birds. By concentrating birds around an unnaturally rich food supply in a human-modified...
Wild Side: Making a strong showing
The 62nd annual Martha’s Vineyard Christmas Bird Count (CBC) was held amid drizzle, fog, and an incredibly high tide on Sunday, Jan. 2. My...
Wild Side: House finches
Perhaps the strongest trend evident this fall among the birds frequenting my yard in Oak Bluffs has been a resurgence in the number of...