As always, click the image to enlarge The weekend past, Shauna and I visited Washington and Monroe counties (Ohio), primarily to engage in fish work. I'll hope to post some of our piscine captures later. Our hosts were David and Laura Hughes, indefatigable explores who have lived in rural Washington County for years now and know the natural history of the area like no others. Sunday morning, we decided to take a backroads path to the meeting spot where we'd be doing fish work. That decision proved fortuitous. A rural lane took us into a richly wooded narrow valley that was carpeted with Blue ..read more

This male Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) spent much time foraging in my lawn yesterday afternoon, April 10. Ground-bound flickers are often hunting ants. It may have been no coincidence that he was particularly interested in the patches of Common Blue Violets (Viola sororia) which, of course, I let run rampant (no chemicals here). Ants are a big food source for flickers, and ants are also major dispersers of violet seeds. I suspect that my feral native violet colonies have abetted the formation of ant colonies, thus helping to feed this flicker. A "wild" lawnscape attracts much more in t ..read more

One of the white (leucistic) Eastern Gray Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) that can be locally common in parts of SW North Carolina. While the town of Brevard is famous for their white squirrels, they're elsewhere and this one was imaged near Tryon, about an hour to the east. I wanted to photograph one of these beasts on my recent trip to North Carolina to speak at the amazing Gardening for Life Festival. Thanks to Vivian and Bill for allowing to visit their property, which has melanistic (black), normal gray, and white squirrels! March 30, 2024.   ..read more

  An amazing stand of Yellow Trillium (Trillium luteum) blankets a rich forest in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina. This morning. I'm working my way back north following a wonderful time at the Gardening for Life festival in Tryon, North Carolina. I was there to speak about moths. This region is a botanical hotspot and I've been soaking up the early spring flora, but have also seen bear, elk, and many other interesting things. More on all this later, when time permits ..read more

The inaugural Spring Botany Blast! takes place this April 11 - 14 in and around the incredible New River Gorge in West Virginia. This region is a plant aficionado's paradise. A diversity of habitats, mostly wooded, in stunning mountain environs, harbor scores of wildflower species, often in great profusion. We'll be based at Hawk's Nest State Park, which is convenient to all of the special hotspots that we'll be visiting. Spring Botany Blast! was started as an offshoot of the New River Birding & Nature Festival, in which I have participated as a guide and speaker for about 20 years. So, I ..read more

Hi all, and thanks as always for reading! Sorry for the long (for me) lapse in posts. Things have been a bit busy of late, and it's been tough to carve time out to sit down and craft a new piece. But here we are, and away we go. An Eastern Red Bat (Lasiurus borealis) nestles among the leaves of an American Beech (Fagus grandifolia). This species is the consummate tree bat, and its range mirrors that of the great eastern deciduous forest, which spans the eastern half of the U.S., stretching from the Gulf Coast into southern Canada. Shauna Weyrauch and I have had some interesting field excursi ..read more

  A quintet of Tundra Swans (Cygnus columbianus) prepares for landing. I attended the annual Ohio Bluebird Society's annual meeting last Saturday, March 2, to speak about moths. Little known fact: The majority of the Eastern Bluebird's non-winter diet is moth caterpillars. Shauna and I had a great time, met lots of people, and I saw scads of friends that I haven't seen in a while. The Society is quite active and about 140 people were in attendance. Afterwards, Shauna and I took the long way home, in order to visit Killbuck Marsh - one of the largest interior wetland complexes in Ohio. Ki ..read more

  Ivy-leaved Speedwell (Veronica hederifolia) was in full bloom on south-facing slopes of the Ohio River last Saturday, February 24. Shauna Weyrauch and I visited the deep south of Ohio last weekend seeking, among other things, early flora. This species was not a primary target. Little Eurasian weeds such as this speedwell are always among the first flowers to bloom, and some of them, such as Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) can be found in flower any month of the year. On this excursion, native plants were our goal, but I could not resist an image of the showy speedwell flower. Our fir ..read more

A juvenile Cooper's hawk, perhaps upset that its name is changing/Jim McCormac  Nature/Opinion: American Ornithological Society set to rename honorific birds Columbus Dispatch February 18, 2024 NOTES: The following column takes an oppositional viewpoint to the initiative launched by the American Ornithological Society (AOS) on November 1 of last year. While my initial gut reaction to this mass renaming was negative, I waited some time to think about this, and better process all sides before opining. While from nearly all metrics opponents probably far outnumber proponents, that did ..read more

I'm giving a talk on bird photography - The Art and Science of Shooting Birds - tomorrow evening, February 21, at 6:30 pm at the Cincinnati Nature Center. It's for the center's camera club, but guests are welcome. It's free to members of CNC; $10 if not. Preregistration is required, and more details in the following link: Cincinnati Nature Center (ticketapp.org ..read more