Monday, April 21, 2025

Wild Side

Wild Side: The indestructible seaside goldenrod

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Today’s subject is a bit unseasonable, since the plant I’m discussing doesn’t bloom until the shortening days of early autumn. But like most of our native vegetation, it’s breaking dormancy as you read this....

Wild Side: Early bees

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In my last column, I confidently predicted both the species and the approximate timing of my first bee sighting of the season: I expected it would be a honey bee, turning up sometime in...

Wild Side: Giving the Western honey bee some slack

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Regular readers of this column will know that, in general, I struggle to muster much affection for non-native species, especially ones that may have negative effects on native flora and fauna. To a degree,...

Wild Side: Earthworm Day for robins

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Tuesday, Feb. 25, may not have been quite warm enough to pass for a truly fine day. But it was definitely a day that had the right idea. Lifted by a brisk influx of...

Wild Side: Winter owl woes

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Winter poses a stiff challenge for birds that remain at our latitude through the season, and the vagaries of winter weather can produce sudden and obvious shifts in bird behavior. Island birders have recently...

Wild Side: Special spot for birding

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Are you an aspiring or beginning birder, looking to learn the common species and master basic birding skills? Are you a more advanced birder, honing your ID skills? Or are you looking for a...

Wild Side: Nature riffs like a jazz musician

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I’ve always had a fondness for the little clusters of closely related species that evolution can produce. Sometimes it’s a whole genus, like those infuriatingly similar Empidonax flycatchers; sometimes it’s just a species pair,...

Wild Side: The great egret

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Held on Sunday, Dec. 29, the annual Vineyard Christmas Bird Count (CBC) was a successful one. A few hours of drizzle in the morning didn’t help, but didn’t really hinder any of the 13...

Wild Side: Solstice sightings

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With the arrival of the winter solstice, bird life on Martha’s Vineyard has settled into a fairly stable winter pattern. Vagrants are always possible, but in general, relatively little migration is occurring now, and...

Wild Side: Red-tailed hawk

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A robust and adaptable predator, the red-tailed hawk should be familiar to anyone who looks up on Martha’s Vineyard. The species is present here year-round in significant numbers, and nests widely across the Island....

Wild Side: Red-legged grasshoppers

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The season for insect-watching never completely ends on Martha’s Vineyard. One can always hunt for and (and sometimes find) concealed, overwinter forms. Small pockets of winter activity can persist where sun exposure and shelter...

Wild Side: Wasp colonies

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It's hard to think of a less popular insect than the yellowjacket, maligned because they can sting. First, I should be clear that “yellowjacket” is an imprecise, generic common name that conceals a good...

Wild Side: Hiding in plain sight

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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 cricket, Hapithus saltator, ranks among the most common cricket species...

Wild Side: Drury’s longhorn bee

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On the last day of September, I got home from work and did what I do virtually every warm day throughout the year: turned on my camera, and took a swing through our yard...

Wild Side: Our Northern flower moth

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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 small yard into meadow, encouraging native grasses and wildflowers in...

Wild Side: Seed weevils

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“Seed weevil” is the kind of imprecise common name that drives naturalists to distraction. To start with, weevils, taken generally, are a vast group of beetles, with not far shy of a quarter-million described...

Wild Side: On the hunt

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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 known Vineyard representative of a small taxonomic family, Gryllotalpidae, that’s...

Wild Side: A new Vineyard resident

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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, some species manage to benefit from the changing conditions. A recent...

Wild Side: Tiger beetles

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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, flat-bottomed, and broad-beamed, an old boat already when we bought...

Wild Side: The stealthy robber fly

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Among the most impressive members of the family Asilidae — that is, the robber flies — the genus Laphria poses something of a puzzle on Martha’s Vineyard. We’ve got vast amounts of seemingly suitable...