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 the day looked warm enough. But a cold, persistent northwest...
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 solstice and equinox for decades or centuries into the future....
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 Bluffs. This is not to complain: Like Henry David Thoreau,...
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. 17. Writing for the “Trilobites” science series, Sabrina Imbler summarized...
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 of this species, and at times this colorful sparrow can...
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 setting, birdfeeding alters bird behavior, elevates risk of disease, exposes...
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 own effort, counting birds from West Chop to Vineyard Haven...
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 house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus). House finches in our immediate neighborhood...
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. The eponymous tinted tummy on a red-bellied woodpecker, for example,...
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 a bug enthusiast, I feel the same way about winter....
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 Fink Family Foundation. Both entities share my interest in sustainability...
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 two others known from historical records and a couple others...
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 accumulate, and I feel like I know steadily less about...
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 without an obvious explanation. These are good reasons for learning...
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 of several species in the genus Amynthas that have become...
Wild Side: Cicada killer wasps
The most common type of question I get in early August has to do with wasps: Big ones, sometimes described as frighteningly large, black and orange with white banding, often seen as “aggressive” because...
Wild Side: Butterfly milkweed
If there is a particular plant worthy of being named the Vineyard’s National Wildflower, it is surely butterfly milkweed, Asclepias tuberosa. It’s a plant everyone on the Vineyard has seen, and it’s one that...
Wild Side: East Coast grasshoppers
As interesting as I find grasshoppers to be, I have to admit that as a group, these are not particularly colorful insects. In keeping with the benefits of staying hidden while perched on stems...
Wild Side: How long will it stay?
The past couple of weeks have been fine ones for me, replete with interesting wildlife sightings and opportunities to explore new or inaccessible areas. It’s hard to pick one single discovery as the high...
Wild Side: Leafhoppers
Insects are currently enjoying a moment of mostly positive media attention, thanks to the remarkable mass emergence of periodical cicadas in parts of the Eastern United States. As a bug-lover, I’m delighted to see...