Matt Pelikan
Wild Side: Hiding in plain sight
File this one under “hiding in plain sight.” A relatively new arrival on Martha’s Vineyard, as far as I can tell, the jumping bush...
Wild Side: Drury’s longhorn bee
On the last day of September, I got home from work and did what I do virtually every warm day throughout the year: turned...
Wild Side: Our Northern flower moth
Regular readers, and our long-suffering neighbors in Oak Bluffs, will know that over a span of 20 years, we’ve gradually converted most of our...
Wild Side: Seed weevils
“Seed weevil” is the kind of imprecise common name that drives naturalists to distraction. To start with, weevils, taken generally, are a vast group...
Wild Side: On the hunt
On the long list of insects I’d like to see, one species near the top is the Northern mole cricket, Neocurtilla hexadactyla. The only...
Wild Side: A new Vineyard resident
Climate change stands out as the greatest current threat to biodiversity. But when discussing nature, it’s axiomatic that no matter how dire a threat,...
Wild Side: Tiger beetles
A favorite activity for my wife and I is canoeing on the Vineyard’s bays and great ponds. Our canoe is a lumbering brute, heavy,...
Wild Side: The stealthy robber fly
Among the most impressive members of the family Asilidae — that is, the robber flies — the genus Laphria poses something of a puzzle...
Wild Side: Bee happy
With more than 200 species of bees having been documented on Martha’s Vineyard, it’s no surprise that our bee fauna exhibits a huge amount...
Wild Side: Planting for wildlife
As environmental awareness grows among the general population, and as the benefits that can come from creating even small-scale wildlife resources grow more apparent,...
Wild Side: Eye of the naturalist
Sometimes described as the founder of American ornithology, Alexander Wilson (1766–1813) was a naturalist and painter of prodigious talent. The nine volumes of his...
Wild Side: The Discreet, Though Plentiful, Red-Eyed Vireo
Standing on a hilltop in the woodland of the Chilmark moraine this past weekend, I experienced a single, dominant impression: Red-eyed vireo is one...
Wild Side: Yellow-throated warbler
Well, he’s back again.
In one of the more bizarre episodes in the history of Martha’s Vineyard bird life, a male yellow-throated warbler is once...
Wild Side: Colletes, the cellophane bees
My current favorite bee genus? Why, thank you for asking: Colletes!
Colletes isn’t the most diverse bee genus, and its members are not the prettiest...
Wild Side: The inscrutable dandelion
If there’s one point I truly insist on regarding natural history, it’s that the most common organisms and the most familiar settings can be...
Wild Side: The frustrating season
Ah, early spring! Or, as we know it here on Martha’s Vineyard, the Season of Intense Frustration. Quite routinely in early April, mainland Massachusetts...
Wild Side: Insects of water and air
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a gaping void in my natural history knowledge: the biology and ecology of insects that have aquatic...
Wild Side: The osprey cometh
It’s hard to think of a species more beloved among Vineyarders than the osprey. This long-winged, black-and-white bird was, like many other raptors, nearly...
Wild Side: Brown thrashers have become rare here
A recent report in a Vineyard birdwatching Facebook group called to mind a species I hardly ever think of these days: the brown thrasher....
Wild Side: Reconsider ducks
The late, great Vern Laux, perhaps the best birder ever to trespass his way across the Vineyard, had little patience with ducks. Oh, he’d...