This Turkey Butt’s for You

Probably every child in America has colored in a turkey at some point in their grade school careers. There is something satisfying in smashing a red crayon to that iggly wiggly wattle. The real artistic bravado, though, comes in choosing colors for the tail feathers, taking those oversimplified lines and turning them into the daring display of plumage. But never once did I wonder what was underneath, what was hidden behind the

The Rodent King

Strictly speaking, rodent is a neutral term for any member of the order Rodentia. Let's not kid ourselves though, there is a distinct negative connotation. Rodents may simply be mammals whose teeth grow for life but the term brings to mind rats, mice and other vermin. Historically rodents are unpopular for two reasons, peskiness and pestilence.

Until recently I thought of rats as the big rodents and mice as the small ones. Wrong. Apparently beavers are the King of Rodents.

Pink Piss & Mosquito Mystique

I thought I knew it all. Mosquitoes bite. They annoy. They carry disease. In their larval state, they wriggle about in puddles. And the vicious little beasties are found worldwide. Sound about right?

Wrong. As it turns out I knew very little about mosquitoes.

Have you ever seen a mosquito sipping nectar? I thought not. It is, however, the meal of choice for most mosquitoes. Their diet is quite similar to that of the butterfly.

Wild Wandering Efts

There is nothing more American than a little rebellion. In honor of Independence Day, I’m protesting the misuse of the word red.

There seem to be two definitions of red, the standard, “red, white and blue” and the more troubling red as in “red head.” This second use of the word is wrong.

In a wave of patriotic fervor, let’s clean up our language starting with a name change for the Red Eft. Let’s call it like we see it. I hereby declare the salamander formerly known as the Red Eft is now the Explosively Orange Eft.

Whatever you call it, this eft makes an arresting sight on drab rainy moist days in the woods. Neon orange is more than striking against the backdrop of browns, grays and greens of the forest. Even their slow side-winding walk is deliciously alluring. It draws you in, but don’t do it. Don’t kiss the “Red” Eft.

Doodles Of Loons

Look, there is something wrong with this picture. No it's not just that the loon has no feet. It's that the loon lacks looniness.

Red Trillium, Poison Ivy

After leeches and ticks, the scariest thing in the woods is poison ivy. That I’ve never had a case of poison ivy makes no difference. I strip down as soon as I get home from a hike, put everything I’m wearing in the washing machine and get in the shower.

Tarrying With Tadpoles

“I love everything about you,” said the caterpillar. “Promise you’ll never change.” ~ from Tadpole’s Promise by Jeanne Willis

“It’s Thursday,” I said, “We have to go to the lake."

"Why?" my daughter asked.

"We have to visit the tadpoles I’ve adopted,” I said.

“You’ve adopted them?” She smiled. “That means I have brothers and sisters.”

Even with the promise of amphibian siblings, she was reluctant to hike.

Wet Feet And Strangers In The Wood

It started with a stranger in the woods. Enraptured by the calls of the red-winged blackbird, the stark wintered-over cattails and the sun shining on the last shards of ice on the pond, I struck up a conversation with a passerby. It must have been my goofy, content-with-the world-and-all-of-nature smile but it was not long before this fellow was saying, “I know where there are some great vernal pools.”

I know, like you haven’t heard that a thousand times.

Easter Skunk Cabbage

At first glance Easter may not seem to have much basis in the natural world. You might think the ritualistic hiding of eggs a completely human construct. You’d be wrong. One only has to see skunk cabbage in early spring to know where this quaint tradition comes from. Mother Nature has been hiding little orbs in the herbaceous basket of the skunk cabbage flower for eons.

Eat Shit and Live - Beaver

As my high school English teacher, Mr. Simpson used to say, the F-Word is for those who are too lazy to say what they really mean. It's inarticulate. Perhaps that is why "Eat shit and die!" is one of my favorite* epithets. To be used sparingly, uttered only when truly meant. In which case, of course, it should be spat.

I was not thinking of cussing as I crossed the ice to examine a beaver lodge recently, but I was ready to shriek if the ice gave way. I couldn't help but imagine the watery grave awaiting me below the ice, despite the fact that it was more than a foot thick and could probably hold a 2 ton truck. The lodge was a magnificent heap of mud and sticks jutting out of the snow covered ice. Up close it towered several feet overhead.

Food, Sex & Extreme Single-Tasking

I’ve been thinking about moths nonstop since I fell head over heels for Henrietta. She was, after all, my first American Dagger Moth. Since our short but highly anthropomorphized tryst I’ve been plagued with emotion. I’ve pined, wondered, what-ifed and yes, I’ve even dabbled in jealousy.

Henrietta is pupating right now. Snug in some stump, wrapped in a cocoon of larval hair, silk and leaf bits, she lies in wait for spring. Soon my beloved sunny caterpillar will be a creature of the night.

Somewhere in my childhood I learned that butterflies and moths couldn’t eat. They didn’t even have mouths. They just flew around trying to mate before dying. The search for love before death appealed to my streak of romantic fatalism. Yet I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the poor creatures. What if they got really thirsty before they found their mate? Was their flight through the damp night one of a wanderer in the desert?

I was all for dying in the pursuit of love but the idea of no mouth was unsettling. Not anymore

Porcupine For Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

Until last week I’d always assumed that porcupines were impervious to attack, I’d seen a dog with a mouthful of quills. But last week, in the wilds of Quebec (Parc national du Mont-Orford to be exact), posted on a tree was a little blurb about fisher cats. Having studied French for one year, over a decade ago, I was able to decipher almost nothing. Yet the sign seemed to strongly suggest that the fisher cat, the terror of the weasel family, could eat one porcupine every 20 days, a rabbit every week or 12 mice a day. I found this absolutely shocking. No, not the part where 240 mice equals one porcupine, the part where a porcupine gets eaten!

Giant Mushrooms and Mad Scientists

You are hiking in the woods. Giant mushrooms attack. They are coming fast, red mushrooms with white dots. Thank goodness they seem compelled to travel in a straight line, single file like an old video game. As the menacing mushrooms float in for the attack, you crouch, muscles pulsing with anticipation. You leap and your legs fly whipping about in a round house super whammy kick fest. White puffy flesh flies; chunks rain down. You triumph.

It’s OK to harbor secret fantasies of invincibility, but they are fantasies. If you think you can really kick fungal ass so easily, you have some things to learn.What if you were not attacked by light and fluffy mushrooms but by one of the gelatinous, gooey indeterminant species? You can damage the indeterminant fungi but they’ll continue to grow. They can even envelope the living. Kick and scream all you like, but these rare mushrooms could grow right over you.

With Henry It Was Love at First Sight

Or perhaps it was with Henrietta. When loving a caterpillar, does sex really matter? Technically, for identification purposes sex might be key, but in this case the “Peterson First Guide to Caterpillars” makes no mention of a difference between males and females of this species. It does, however, mention the beautiful shiny black face and thick lustrous hairs. Others may have white or cream hair, but Henrietta’s was yellow.

Yes, I’ve decided it’s Henrietta after all. Why not anthropomorphize on the racier side? Speaking of racier sides, Henrietta definitely has one. Little did I know it when I first laid eyes on her, but she is an American Dagger Moth.

Just the name gives me shivers. She is so bad ass. And I haven’t even told you about the pencils yet!