Well, this certainly sucks

After attempting a couple of other techniques that weren’t working so well, I finally broke down and did it: I made myself a pooter.

If you are not familiar with entomology, you may have a variety of responses to this statement, including, “Congratulations – Al is a big boy now!” and, “Isn’t that a slang term for female genitalia?” But no, that’s read more

Amateur naturalism, part six (again)

I admit to not applying myself to finding a new topic for the long-quiet category of amateur naturalism – if you could see me now, you’d know by my face how contrite I am. But baby critter season approaches, and so I am reposting this one from last year regarding injured and orphaned wildlife (and wildlife rehabilitation) in the hopes that it provides help to someone in need.

I used to read more

Author Review: Gerald Durrell

A few years ago, I would have skipped doing any reviews of this nature, because the books I refer to had a limited run from American publishers and are nearly all out of print now some of them never actually had a US publication, since the author is British and they were primarily published in England. With the internet, however, it is now possible to find just about any book, read more

Amateur naturalism, part six

It’s been a while since I tackled another aspect of this topic, but this is the right time of year for this one, so let’s delve into orphaned wildlife and rehabilitation.

I used to work in this field a fair amount, both in administration of wildlife organizations and as an active raptor [birds of prey] rehabilitator, plus I served as wildlife adviser in several different situations. So read more

The return of hummer cam

I just happened to check in on this when reviewing some old posts, and it seems there are already eggs in the nest. So check out ‘Phoebe,’ a returning resident hummingbird (I apologize for the ads – it’s how the server is hosted):



Live TV : Ustream

[You also might enjoy this. I’m a bit of an aircraft enthusiast, and as I was writing this post just now I heard a plane read more

Amateur naturalism, part five

While I’ve covered some details about specific types of animals in the previous posts, I’ve been slow in getting back to some overall tips that apply to all of them, so with that in mind, let’s talk about behavior.

Years ago I worked at a humane society that, among many other things, offered obedience classes and sport training for dogs, as well as some counseling on behavior problems. read more

Not my fault this time

In all seriousness, I don’t strictly photograph bugs, and I’m more than happy to do some mammals and cute critters, but I haven’t been coming across many recently. I’ll dig through older slides for something furry pretty soon, I promise.


But even when I tackle the “cuter” bugs, the bare truth is, they’re not always cute. The insects known read more

One plant

On the same day that I snagged the eentsy frog seen here, I collected a significant number of other pics (of course.) There might even be another forthcoming post out of the one-hour casual trip, but right now, I’m going to concentrate on just one plant. Not one plant species, but one solitary read more

There isn’t always a complete answer, part one…

For those of you who have been hanging on the edge of your seat, checking thrice daily to see if I’ve offered an update, I apologize for keeping you in suspense. Actually, no I don’t – suspense is good for you, and anxiety strengthens the heart. Well known fact.

Anyway, I mentioned trying to follow-up on the read more

And another thing…

First off, even if you don’t like spiders, you really need to check out this video, an extremely well done collection of jumping spider behaviors. This comes courtesy of The Dragonfly Woman. Even though I’m embedding it here, I encourage you to go read more

1 2 3