The Petition

A Gray Hairstreak forages for nectar

The Petition Come evening a keening sound in the wilderness, A call for the divine sloth to end her sad deliberation. So many stout branches await her grasp. Dusk it is then, for the Anthropocene and its apex predator, For the brain that wrote itself an infinite loop and Conjured up a deity in its… Continue reading The Petition

Bumble Bees Will Not Attend Your Picnic

“Hummingbird & Yellow Jacket” by Rob Ireton is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Bumble Bees will not attend your picnic. Yellow jackets (Vespula pensylvanica) on the other hand, will crash your picnic, particularly in late summer. Yellow jackets. Who likes them? They do not rank on my top ten list of favorite insects, but I have learned that they play an important role in maintaining balance in the… Continue reading Bumble Bees Will Not Attend Your Picnic

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Bumble Bees, Honey Bees and Milkweed

A Yellow-faced Bumble Bee visiting flowers on a a Balloon Plant aka "Family Jewels Tree" milkweed.

“Trees remind us how busy and unstable we are, and how ridiculous that is.” —Rebecca Solnit, A Childhood of Reading and Wandering “Imagine your whole life in a few months, everything accelerated. We must seem as slow as a tree to them.” —Bert Wilson, Yellow-Faced Bumble Bee (Bombus vosnesenskii) As I child I feared all stinging… Continue reading Bumble Bees, Honey Bees and Milkweed

Our Closest Neighbors Are Birds

A Bewick's wren perched on a backyard railing

Several avian neighbors regularly flout our home owners association rules by installing custom built additions on our house from late spring into the summer months. Of course our human neighbors are not aware of the nests and even if they were, it is against the law to move or destroy an active nest. While the… Continue reading Our Closest Neighbors Are Birds