Palm oil supplements are added to cow feed to increase the fat content in the milk used to produce butter I am not a baker and don’t want to be one, but have you noticed that the butter you leave on your counter isn’t as soft as it used to be? I always presumed it…
Why else does hardly anything seem to want to eat Japanese Beetles? Lip-smacking good – crickets, earthworms, caterpillars, even some bees and wasps – yummy if you’re an insectivore that is! That’s what they call a creature that eats bugs. I spend a lot of time looking at stuff. Sometimes I understand what it’s doing,…
First reported in the United States in 1916, the Japanese Beetle can now be found across North America Last year was an odd summer: so many insects appeared in perilously low numbers while others appeared in abundance. But why is it that the ones that cause the most damage or are the most annoying are…
Fish use various techniques to survive. But they are a creative bunch – they have to be! What do fish do when the water freezes? This is certainly an issue for fish that live in our part of the world. We know that some remain active, or how else could our winter ice-fishing industry survive?…
Animal tracks can tell what the animal was doing, but identifying the tracks can be tricky We often see animal tracks but do we really know the story they’re trying to tell us? There are lots of clues to watch out for. Let’s look at a few of them. Animal tracks are easy to detect…
Dead trees are important in our landscape, with many species relying on them for survival We see them every day, and, essentially, most people just ignore them. Hundreds of thousands of them were created a few years ago when the Emerald Ash Borer invaded North America. Communities rallied to cut them down and place restrictions…
A sampling of some of the odd origins of some animal names that we take for granted I always marvel at and sometimes struggle to decide where an animal got its name. Think of mammals for a minute – what is a skunk? A rabbit? A moose? Generally, with birds, many of the names refer…
Capturing the rainfalls from Atmospheric River storms could help replenish depleted aquifers I usually read fiction just to relax and enjoy, and I seldom think I might learn from someone else’s fantasies. But then I read Linda Davies’ book ARk Storm. It was a good read with interesting characters and a plot involving the manipulation…
Dooming tens of thousands of birds, small mammals and amphibians to death I have never sat on municipal council, nor have I ever been a politician of any stripe. But I have dealt with municipalities and politicians for decades, both vocationally and avocationally, and I understand the constraints of time, authority and money that bind…
While we may have warm blankets to keep us warm, birds only have their feathers Any animal, big or small, has to figure out how to stay warm in winter. At this time of year, we watch our feathered friends in awe as they wake up on the coldest mornings healthy and alive. Some birds…
Palm oil supplements are added to cow feed to increase the fat content in the milk used to produce butter I am not a baker and don’t want to be one, but have you noticed that the butter you leave on your counter isn’t as soft as it used to be? I always presumed it…
Why else does hardly anything seem to want to eat Japanese Beetles? Lip-smacking good – crickets, earthworms, caterpillars, even some bees and wasps – yummy if you’re an insectivore that is! That’s what they call a creature that eats bugs. I spend a lot of time looking at stuff. Sometimes I understand what it’s doing,…
First reported in the United States in 1916, the Japanese Beetle can now be found across North America Last year was an odd summer: so many insects appeared in perilously low numbers while others appeared in abundance. But why is it that the ones that cause the most damage or are the most annoying are…
Fish use various techniques to survive. But they are a creative bunch – they have to be! What do fish do when the water freezes? This is certainly an issue for fish that live in our part of the world. We know that some remain active, or how else could our winter ice-fishing industry survive?…
Animal tracks can tell what the animal was doing, but identifying the tracks can be tricky We often see animal tracks but do we really know the story they’re trying to tell us? There are lots of clues to watch out for. Let’s look at a few of them. Animal tracks are easy to detect…
Dead trees are important in our landscape, with many species relying on them for survival We see them every day, and, essentially, most people just ignore them. Hundreds of thousands of them were created a few years ago when the Emerald Ash Borer invaded North America. Communities rallied to cut them down and place restrictions…
A sampling of some of the odd origins of some animal names that we take for granted I always marvel at and sometimes struggle to decide where an animal got its name. Think of mammals for a minute – what is a skunk? A rabbit? A moose? Generally, with birds, many of the names refer…
Capturing the rainfalls from Atmospheric River storms could help replenish depleted aquifers I usually read fiction just to relax and enjoy, and I seldom think I might learn from someone else’s fantasies. But then I read Linda Davies’ book ARk Storm. It was a good read with interesting characters and a plot involving the manipulation…
Dooming tens of thousands of birds, small mammals and amphibians to death I have never sat on municipal council, nor have I ever been a politician of any stripe. But I have dealt with municipalities and politicians for decades, both vocationally and avocationally, and I understand the constraints of time, authority and money that bind…
While we may have warm blankets to keep us warm, birds only have their feathers Any animal, big or small, has to figure out how to stay warm in winter. At this time of year, we watch our feathered friends in awe as they wake up on the coldest mornings healthy and alive. Some birds…