Bird Sensibility
My Christmas gift suggestion to you is a book. I’ve been paging through and reading sections of David’s Sibley’s newest book, What It’s Like to Be a Bird. He begins […]
The Great Outdoors
Pass the Sauce
I’m a fan of Thanksgiving with all the trappings, everything from giving thanks to pumpkin pie, and yes, with whipped cream! But clearly one of New Jersey’s top contributions to
The Wild Ones
Each spring for 32 years I have been hunting wild turkeys. And every spring a few turkeys will make a turkey out of me; some would say that is not
A Thanksgiving Tail
In anticipation of the upcoming holiday I’ve decided to talk about one of our most common fungi, turkey tail, a shelf or bracket fungus. Its name comes from the concentric
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What Lies Beneath
With the dampness of fall comes a crop of wild mushrooms in many shapes, colors, and sizes. Mycophagists, people who hunt for edible mushrooms, are exploring the woods for their
More Black Magic
We left off last week with biologist and herpetologist Professor Howard Reinert, of the College of New Jersey, who once told me about the unique anatomy of the black snake
Bit of Black Magic
When we built our home some 37 years ago it would seem that we either displaced or created some desirable real-estate for a few local denizens who began to haunt
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The Wood Warblers
They have names that evoke their appearance, like the chestnut-sided, black-throated green, or yellow-throated. Or names that describe where they may have been first identified like Tennessee, Cape May, or
Indian Pipe
Many woodland plants deal with decreased sunlight by blooming early in spring when leaf cover is sparse or nonexistent. But our subject species, Indian pipe, adapts to the darkened woods
Bearded One
Often when CU Maurice River members are on a hike, one of our naturalists who has an interest in botany will discuss Usnea sp., a lichen, because it’s just so