Matt Pelikan
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...
Wild Side: White-throated sparrows
An endless source of mirth among birders is the way common names for birds often ignore obvious traits and focus instead on obscure markings....
Wild Side: Wolf spiders
“Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” urges the poet Dylan Thomas. The target of his petulance, I expect, was mortality. But as...
Wild Side: Monster or marvel?
The praying mantis, that gigantic predatory insect of Vineyard yards and gardens, is suffering from a barrage of bad press. Known officially as the...
Wild Side: Orioles secret journey
The desk in my home office faces out a window on the back of our house, affording a clear view of a row of...
Wild Side: Farms as habitat
In addition to pecking out Wild Side columns for the MV Times, my working life includes roles with BiodiversityWorks and the Betsy and Jesse...
Wild Side: The buzz on bumble bees
Everybody knows what bumble bees are: big, hairy, black-and-yellow insects flitting from flower to flower. At least eight species occur on the Vineyard, with...
Wild Side: Fuzzy fly mystery
A typical field season generates more questions than answers for me, producing a lamentable sense of backward progress: As the years go by, questions...
Wild Side: Island bees
Everybody has received the basic message about native bees: they are ecologically vital, and populations of at least some species have declined markedly, often...
Wild Side: Non-native earthworms
A down-Island gardener just brought me a surprise: a pail of compost containing worms the gardener had correctly identified as Asian jumping worms, one...