Pondering the Ponds of Nags Head Woods Again

November 13th, 2016. Exactly four years ago I wandered around The Nature Conservancy’s Nags Head Woods Ecological Preserve, and what I saw triggered a cascade of ideas that I described in a story posted then called “Pondering the Ponds of
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The View from Chikala Hill: Birds, Butterflies, and People in Southern Malawi

July 2016. I was back in southern Malawi as team leader for a small, biodiversity-related component of the Shire River Basin Management Program, a large project funded by the World Bank and implemented by the Government of Malawi’s Ministry of
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Mapping Mahogany on the Border with Belize

January 2016. In my mind mahogany is one of nature’s wonders, one of the most beautiful woods in the world. Maybe that’s because my dad decided to use mahogany paneling in my bedroom when he was building the house where
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More Ecological Musings in the Maya Forest

January 2016. The Department of Petén covers the northern third of Guatemala. It is a vast region of lowland forests, rivers and lakes, home to only around four percent of Guatemala’s population of 15 million. It’s a long way from
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Sugar Maples, Climate Change, and Ecohydrology in the Sierra de las Minas of Guatemala

February 2016. Guatemala City was covered by a dense fog when César picked me up at my hotel at 5:30 AM. I’d already filled my travel mug with hot coffee, brain fuel for at least part of our drive to
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Morning Visit with Aldo Leopold at the Shack

In his essay “The Round River,” Aldo Leopold wrote: “The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, ‘What good is it?’ If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part
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Facing the Anthropocene in Florida: The Ecological Society of America’s 2016 Annual Meeting

The Ecological Society of America held its annual meeting this year in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The conference theme was “Novel Ecosystems in the Anthropocene.” I’ve written about the “Anthropocene,” or alluded to it, in many stories I’ve posted here, most
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Nature’s Warm Heart: Following John Muir’s Footsteps at Fountain Lake, Wisconsin

“This sudden plash into pure wildness – baptism in Nature’s warm heart – how utterly happy it made us!” John Muir wrote in The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, describing his arrival, in 1849 at the age of eleven,
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Another Visit with John Burroughs at Slabsides

May, 2016. A year ago in May, 2015, I visited the rustic retreat and writing cabin of the influential American nature writer John Burroughs (1837-1921) in the Hudson Valley. I wrote about it here, and the story eventually made its way
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How Federico Albert Stopped the Sand from Swallowing Chanco, Chile

April 2016. In trying to figure out how John Muir finally found his way to the slopes of Volcán Tolhuaca in November of 1911 to camp under his “long-sought for” Araucarias, our research soon led us to the name of Federico
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    Coronavirus, Human Hubris, and Life in the Coevolving Biosphere The novel coronavirus is holding up a mirror for our species, giving us an opportunity to consider our place in the evolution of life on Earth and question our anthropocentrism. What I’ve missed during this pandemic and shutdown of our usual social and economic life is writing or reporting that puts this experience, unprecedented in …...
    The View From Cascade Head Lessons from the Biosphere from the Oregon Coast To be released by Oregon State University Press in October 2020. Book Description from the OSU Press Catalogue Cascade Head, on the Oregon Coast between Lincoln City and Neskowin, has stunning ocean views, abundant recreational opportunities, and a rich history of ecological research and conservation. Its landscape …...
    More Fun and Philosophy in the Andrews Experimental Forest In my last story posted here, “Explorations in Oregon’s Andrews Experimental Forest,” I described some adventures during a two-week residency in October, 2019. My opportunity to be there was thanks to the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word, a collaboration between Oregon State University and the US Forest Service. I was …...
    Explorations in Oregon’s Andrews Experimental Forest The H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, located in the Willamette National Forest on the western slope of the Cascade Range, is one of 84 experimental forests in a network established by the U.S. Forest Service. It is one of the most well-studied forests in the world, famous for the long-term...
    Deep Ecology in the Mammoth Cave Area Biosphere Reserve, Kentucky The Ecological Society of America (ESA) held its annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, from August 11-16 this year. I depend on these annual events to catch up with the cutting edge of ecological research and thinking that is relevant to my ecological consulting, and with ecologist friends and colleagues from across the country. Field trips …...
    Report from a Season at Cascade Head February 2019. My last posting, “Monarch Field of Dreams: Reprise,” came at the end of September. Now I should explain why it’s been so long since I’ve written anything here. I’ve just returned to my home base in a Washington DC suburb after nearly four months at Cascade Head on the Oregon Coast. At the …...
    Monarch Field of Dreams: Reprise In the spring of 2010, I dug up a few milkweed plants along a bike path I often ran along and transplanted them to my garden. As I wrote then in a blog titled “Field of Dreams of Monarchs,” I had a very optimistic “if you plant them, they will come” vision. And, sure enough, …...
    Canoeing Louisiana’s Manchac Swamp with Ecological Aliens and the Voodoo Queen My flight from Washington, DC, to New Orleans on the first Friday of August was delayed for seven hours by mechanical problems, so instead of getting to my hotel in time for happy hour in the French Quarter, I arrived at 1:30 AM, exhausted. The next morning, I headed for Café Beignet on Royal Street, …...
    Walking on the Trembling Prairie As we stepped out into the open marsh after crossing over the tree-covered spoil bank along the canal by which we had reached this place on a large pontoon boat, the feel of the ground was immediately, noticeably different. We pushed our way through chest-high grasses and other marsh plants, watching carefully where we placed …...
    More Colorado Fires and Firemoths and More On a trip to Colorado two years ago, in July 2016, I was driving down from a trailhead in the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area after a glorious hike to Arapahoe Pass when I saw the plume of smoke pushing up to the east, high enough to start forming a “pyronimbus” cloud – essentially a thunderhead …...