In the beginning I saw neither hide nor hair of the animal known as the American marten. Then I found a suspicious dropping, and then I glimpsed the animal in a video in my own backyard. Still, it took years to set eyes on my first wild marten. Hear here my chronicle.
Jun 04, 2015•4 min
Human music may well have been inspired by the music of birds. But where did birds get the idea? Recent research findings suggest that songbirds, also known as perching birds or passerines, trace their ancestry to the land of kangaroos.
May 28, 2015•5 min
Life brings its humbling moments. For me, a leader of bird walks, one came recently when a sparrow turned up, and I had no idea what kind it was. What to do? I confessed my ignorance and invited my companions to peer through binoculars and join me in solving the mystery at hand.
May 22, 2015•5 min
Spring brings the eyes a feast of color, and after a long, black-and-white winter, they're hungry for it. Some of the finest color of the season comes to us on the wings of butterflies. Listen and meet the mourning cloak, the comma, and the spring azure.
May 18, 2015•4 min
Have you ever injured yourself by accident, felt stupid afterward, and found yourself the brunt of jokes? I have. My story involves a crowd of kids and a very large and menacing blue crab. Hear it here.
May 08, 2015•5 min
Believe it or not, there are common insects that build armor around themselves like turtles grow shells. As larvae they live in streams, ponds, and lakes and are known as caddisflies.
May 08, 2015•4 min
Build a bird house for bluebirds and they will come, or not, depending on intangibles known only to the birds. In our yard in the Adirondacks we've created a virtual country club for bluebirds, yet still the birds tend to come, survey the real estate, and move on. Why? Listen and join me in wondering why.
Apr 24, 2015•4 min
In the Adirondacks and throughout most of eastern North America, we know spring has arrived when the red maple buds pop. Did you know that some red maples are girls and some are boys, and that you can tell the two apart from a car speeding along the highway? Here hear the details.
Apr 17, 2015•5 min
Riddle: What makes a marsupial a marsupial? Hint: it has little or nothing to do whether the animal has a marsupium, or pouch, for carrying its young. In fact, two mammals that have pouches for carrying young are not considered marsupials. Confused? Listen and join in on the confusion.
Apr 10, 2015•4 min
'All Things Natural' Celebrates 100th Episode! Listen here as Mr. Buck Tooth, "Rodent of the Year," accepts his honor at a meeting of the American Association of Gnawing Rodents.
Apr 03, 2015•6 min
Pets bring us joy and the pleasures of companionship. And sometimes they bring us pain. Listen to a horror story of a house---my house---invaded by hordes of hungry mites.
Mar 25, 2015•5 min
Start looking at birds, and you have to master a whole new vocabulary of lingo. Pretty soon you'll be talking about wingbars, eye-lines, eye-rings, throat patches, rump patches, and if you're a real voyeur, crissums. To know birds, you have to get your mind around the details.
Mar 20, 2015•4 min
Before there was James Bond OO7 the secret agent and ladies' man, there was James Bond the distinguished ornithologist and expert on birds of the West Indians. The real Bond met the creator of the fictional Bond on the island of Jamaica, and the rest is ornithological and cinematic history.
Mar 12, 2015•4 min
Everybody knows the bird, but most us have never seen it in the flesh: the great white owl of northern North America and Eurasia known as the snowy. Snowy owls used to be cigar salesman. Today, they gain appreciation as the most striking and massive of American owls.
Mar 09, 2015•4 min
You don't have to be crazy to believe in the existence of Little People. They exist. We call them penguins. Join me in reminiscing about wild penguins I have known.
Feb 26, 2015•5 min
If you have the privilege of getting close to a mink, it'll stink. But don't let the smell scare you off. These fierce, wide-ranging members of the weasel tribe offer fine entertainment to those who watch them.
Feb 19, 2015•4 min
If the history of medical science can teach us one thing, it's this. Don't underestimate dirt. From ordinary backyard soil and composted compost have some of the world's most useful wonder-drugs. Tuberculosis, a world-wide plague that killed and tormented untold millions, proved no match for the chemical weapons produced by a widespread microbe in plain old ordinary dirt.
Feb 12, 2015•5 min
We may be all cut from the same cloth, yet every one of us is one of a kind. The same holds for wild animals. In a given family of wild owls, robins, or raccoons, no two individuals share the same personality. Vive le difference!
Feb 06, 2015•4 min
Men are often drawn to women by their eyes. So it was with me as I was getting to know my wife, Debbie. In this case, there was more to it than just the color and depth I found in her luminous blue orbs. It also was what they saw.
Jan 30, 2015•6 min
On a cold winter day, I go out, then come in. Between the start and finish lie ninety brisk minutes of exercise and illumination. Join me!
Jan 23, 2015•4 min
Meet Corinne Parnapy, a real live phycologist. She studies that slimy stuff, green or brown or red, that we call algae. Is it interesting? Listen and judge for yourself.
Jan 16, 2015•5 min
Bacteria do it. Viruses do it. Even pesky little fungi do it. Make plants and people sick, that is. Listen to how it goes for plants.
Jan 16, 2015•5 min
Do you hear what I hear? It's late on a cold winter night. Snow lies softly over the ground, and the red stuff in the thermometer is plunging.
Dec 23, 2014•4 min
I've raised baby possums, raccoons, skunks, robins, starlings, and great-horned owls. Which are the most cuddly and fun to be around? The answer may surprise you.
Dec 22, 2014•5 min
If there are bruins in the neighborhood, trouble may be brewin'. Listen and learn how to avoid it.
Dec 17, 2014•6 min
They rock and roll them. We're talking about those boulders we all see in the woods. Geologists call them "erratics."
Dec 12, 2014•4 min
The gelatin that goes into Jello and similar products comes from sanitized, pulverized, boiled animal hooves. Animal hooves are largely made of keratin.
Dec 04, 2014•5 min
It was all over in a thump, a hiss, and a flash of feathers. What was going on? Join me as I try to solve a life-and-death drama staged one morning at our bird feeder.
Nov 26, 2014•4 min
I've been singing that Rodgers and Hammerstein lyric on bright, cheery mornings ever since I performed the song on stage in the second grade. But I ask myself: what makes a beautiful morning beautiful?
Nov 21, 2014•5 min
Meet the two newest members of my household: Silky and Bandit, and pair of guinea pigs.
Nov 13, 2014•5 min
