I wrote this last year after a story I wrote for Nature. As the axolotl is inches toward extinction in the wild, along with so many creatures these days, it’s worth it to remember what makes them so cool. Last month I published a story in Nature about the sad story of the axolotl. It’s […]
Animals
Louisiana wetlands, as many places, are the inadvertent home to some ecosystem-altering invasive species, like fast-spreading aquatic plants called water hyacinth and giant salvinia. But hippos, no. There aren’t any hippos down there. Oh, what might have been. I’m not sure how I didn’t discover this earlier, considering how much I’ve been writing about invasive […]
Sorting through photos from our motion-triggered game camera reminds me a lot of field work. For every target animal you’re seeking, you end up looking at a lot of deer. So when I recently discovered a creature that I couldn’t immediately identify in our roll of game cam photos, I was thrilled.
The inhabitants of little world evolve very quickly, making them nimble in the Anthropocene. That’s good, because most things on Earth are little. It is because I have some faith in the richness of the little world’s genetic raw material and the blind, brute power of evolution that I am less worried about “invasive” plants […]
Here’s a post from 2016 that still makes me smile. You, too? —- Here comes dawn. The sky yawns and the sun flicks its lids above the horizon. But just before the lights come up on Virginia’s rolling hills, the sound of morning commences. Can we call it a song? That might be a stretch. There’s […]
March 1, from the data-driven, unexcitable Capital Weather Gang: “On Friday and Saturday, a powerful storm will lash the Northeast with destructive coastal flooding, wind and heavy snow. It is shaping up to be the most destructive nor’easter of the season, perhaps the most destructive in decades for some along the coast. The National Weather Service is calling […]
I believe in a heaven for all dogdom where my dog waits for my arrival waving his fan-like tail in friendship. ~ Pablo Neruda When you land in Chile, the first thing you notice is the color of the sky. An easier thing to describe is the second thing you notice: The dogs. The country […]
\Here, as this Year of the Dog begins, we are the deciders, choosing which day will be the last for our 15-year-old Korean Jindo, Waits. How does one know when it is time? Is his life still a good thing, to him, if he cannot easily rise to drink water, if he cannot control his […]
