by northoftheridge | Jun 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
Last year I was up in Centre County on 16 May, and I saw a butterfly that I had never seen before. I only managed to get one lousy photo of one specimen before it disappeared. I bonked the shot, but it was good enough for an identification when I got home. Common...
by northoftheridge | May 23, 2013 | Uncategorized
I almost missed it. It was right in front of me, and I almost missed it. I was even looking down, looking for wildflowers, and I didn’t see it. In fact, I almost stepped on it. How do you miss something like that? And I would have missed it, were it not for the burst...
by northoftheridge | May 20, 2013 | Uncategorized
I try not to do this, try not to inflict one of those self-absorbed, egotistical chronicles about “what I did on the 19th of May,” but the fact is I had a good day afield on the 19th of May. Besides, I’m a fairly self-absorbed and egotistical kind of guy. Herewith the...
by northoftheridge | May 15, 2013 | Uncategorized
I was driving north on 235 the other day and passed a small church along the side of the road. As is common these days, the church had a marquee out front and the parson had posted a quote from scripture. Nothing unusual there, but the quote itself gave me pause: “the...
by northoftheridge | Apr 29, 2013 | Uncategorized
There are only about thirteen species of turtle in Pennsylvania, maybe nine of those are found in the Central Ridge and Valley. Of these, perhaps the hardest to spot is the Spotted Turtle (Clemmys guttata).1 There is really nothing particularly striking about Spotted...
by northoftheridge | Feb 4, 2013 | Uncategorized
Long ago I served in Hawai’i. When I left the islands, I bought a wildlife painting to commemorate my tour. The painting shows an Old World flycatcher named the ‘Elepaio (Chasiempis sandwichensis)—nifty little bird—which the Hawaiians considered to be the guardian...
