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Memento Mori
Found, like this, on University Place yesterday. A male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapitcus varius). You almost never see the yellow-tinged belly from a distance.
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Field Trip: Cape May
Rothko sunrise on the big beach at Wildwood Crest on the Cape May peninsula, hanging down from New Jersey’s southeastern end like an appendix. I was on the beach about 50 minutes before sunrise, with a long row of mostly-empty-in-the-off-season motels behind me, and the Sanderlings already working the edge of the waves in the…
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After merely a summer dies the hornet
Unless she’s a queen. A Bald-faced Hornet (Dolichovespula maculata), caste unknown, unexpectedly by the front door buzzer. I rarely see this species, but I know they are neighbors. A local nest was revealed by the fall of leaves a couple of seasons ago. The wood-pulp paper nests are abandoned in the fall and not reused,…
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Ode to the American Chestnut
These non-blight-resistant trees were transplanted 9 years ago. Read more about them in my earlier post.
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Softshell Mystery
I spotted a snouty silhouette in the Lake the other day.It was a turtle of a type I’ve never seen before. The snout suggests some kind of softshell, although the shell doesn’t look so typical for those turtles. I queried Twitter and there were suggestions it’s in the Apolone genus, creatures that live in our…
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The Morning Rush
Not exactly going anywhere at the moment.
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DUE
At Cedar Breaks, a Ranger gave us a good mnemonic for the geological history of the Colorado Plateau: “Cedar Breaks is due for a change” with “due” initialing for deposition, uplift, and erosion. Ancient lake and sea beds heaved up and then slowly, differentially, whittled away…. Bryce Canyon in the fog. Not actually a canyon,…
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Locust Borers
…making more Locust Borers (Megacyllen robiniae). This wasp-like longhorn beetle feeds on goldenrod and lays its eggs on Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) trees, into which the larvae bore…
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Trilobites
Trilobites — the word means “three lobes” and refers to the three axial lobes that divide the body length-wise — were on Earth for some 270-300 million years. None survived the Permian Extinction 240 million years ago. They were diverse and widely spread across the planet; their fossilized remains are found on all continents today.…
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Backyard and Beyond 