Matt Pelikan
Wild Side: Good neighbors
Common, easily observed, and quietly beautiful, the mourning dove is a bird all Vineyarders should be acquainted with. Small-headed, about the size of a...
Wild Side: Dance flies
I’ve written before about my growing fascination with flies — that is, the insect order Diptera — and I’m sorry to report that the...
Wild Side: The BMSB
Like most naturalists, I’m a big fan of “firsts” — seeing a species for the first time, finding something never before recorded in a...
Wild Side: Thick-headed flies
The fly family Conopidae suffers from a ludicrous common name: They are generally known as “thick-headed flies.” The name presumably comes from the blocky,...
Wild Side: Cowbirds
While birds rank among the most charismatic of wildlife, there are a few avian species that arouse the ire of birders and naturalists. Often...
Wild Side: Anatomy of the Vineyard
Famously glacial in its origins, Martha’s Vineyard is a relatively recent creation, in essence a huge pile of rock, transported, tumbled, ground, crushed, puréed,...
Wild Side: Song sparrows
Like most birders, I’m fond of wandering rarities, brightly colored species, and large, charismatic species — the kinds of things that draw hordes of...
Wild Side: Grackles
Let’s just forget about the “first robin of spring” myth. For one thing, robins are here and often plentiful all winter, so their “arrival”...
Wild Side: Bald eagles
As recently as the publication of Vineyard Birds II in 2007, the bald eagle was considered a scarce vagrant on the Island, recorded at...
Wild Side: The long-bodied cellar spider
I feel like part of my job as a nature columnist is to serve as a public relations consultant for animals that are unfairly...
Wild Side: Grebes
Among the stranger-looking birds, grebes are highly adapted to life on and in the water. Their legs are set far back on their bodies...
Wild Side: The Christmas Bird Count
A high point of the serious birder’s year, the Vineyard’s annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC) took place amid frigid conditions on Friday, Dec. 29....
Wild Side: Looking ahead
The end of one year and the start of the next one offers a moment for assessing the recent past and planning the future,...
Wild Side: Cave crickets
Cave crickets seem badly in need of some public relations assistance. Gawky, humpbacked insects (camel cricket is another common name), ranging up to nearly...
Wild Side: Survivors
By the time Thanksgiving rolls around, pickings are getting pretty slim for a Vineyard insect enthusiast. On cool days, finding any insects at all...
Wild Side: Black-horned tree crickets
Here’s a story that shows how it goes with insects and me. I first encountered a black-horned tree cricket in early September 2016, while...
Wild Side: The lesser black-backed gull
Non-birders, alas, dismiss them as “seagulls” and rank them among the foulest of fowl. But among birders, gulls, especially the larger gull species, are...
Wild Side: Deer keds
The conservation organization I work for (The Nature Conservancy, nature.org) shares office space with a smaller, newer, and locally fledged nonprofit, BiodiversityWorks (biodiversityworksmv.org). B-works,...
Answers from the Wild Side
Hi Matt,
My friend Fred found this on his car. What is it, and why does it look this way?
Hi. It's a mature spicebush swallowtail...
Wild Side: Orthopteran diversity
Over seven field seasons, I’ve documented the occurrence (to my own satisfaction at least) of 44 species of orthoptera — grasshoppers, crickets, and katydids,...