When I was a child, we called them locusts. They appeared sometime between when we started to worry about the water level in the well and when we started to worry about going back to school. They were huge – well, huge for grasshoppers, anyway – and dust-colored, and they jumped like gunpowder-propelled novelties out [...]

My daughter and I were exploring our yard the other day, which presented the perfect opportunity to introduce her to one of the coolest, cuddliest caterpillars of all… The wonderful Woolly Bear Caterpillar (Pyrrharctia isabella) is a common sight once October rolls around in temperate regions of the United States east of the Mississippi. The [...]

First let me put forward my credentials for writing about butterflies. This is the second time that I have been butterfly watching and…..well, actually, that’s about it. A young enthusiast, who blogs under the name of ForestPuffin, introduced me to the discipline when he came to visit at the end of August and I became [...]

Butterflies are often beautiful.  Flowers are often beautiful.  When both are together, as often happens, the level of beauty increases exponentially through some form of natural world legerdemain.  It is impossible to figure out exactly how it happens because it seems like natural beauty would have additive or at most multiplicative powers when combined with [...]

Digiscoping is really hard. Isn’t that what everyone keeps saying? That it is almost impossible to get a good quality shot. That it is only really for record shots of something sitting still. Digiscoped with a Swarovski STM80 HD, TLS800 and Nikon D300s. Click images to enlarge Well, the winners of the Digiscoper of the [...]

Unrest and revolution in Egypt has caught the international headlines this week. Mubarak’s ousting has left a military regime holding the reins until the country can catch its collective breath and organise elections in 6 months or so. My visit to Cairo was abbreviated and to attempt any sort of outing with binoculars and camera [...]

The noisiest bird to visit our garden any time of year is the Grey-crowned Babbler Pomatostomus temporalis and the family group is usually eight birds. They jump around babbling away to each other and turning leaves to look for insects-quite a comical bird to say the least! They love the water that we provide and [...]

While exploring the grounds of Wildsumaco Lodge on the east slope of the Andes in Ecuador I came across a rather large bug lying on its back.  I assumed it was some kind of dead freakish moth and flipped it over to get a better look and was very surprised that it opened its wings [...]

After each of my recent visits to the Fort Tilden hawkwatch platform I have paid a visit to the very busy butterfly bush near the community garden there.  The species breakdown tends to be like that at Floyd Bennett Field, but because there is only one butterfly bush the butterflies are much more concentrated.  Recent [...]

Long have I heard the members of the New York City Butterfly Club extol the virtues of Floyd Bennett Field in terms of the amazing array of Lepidoptera one can track down there if one is so inclined.  On a recent visit with some birders I took time out from prowling the rows of the [...]

My trip upstate this past weekend was about more than family, food, and feathers (though all three of those things figured heavily).  Somehow we also found time to look at a variety of cool insects, and, of the insects, we most appreciated the butterflies.  As regular readers here know, butterfly identification is not my forte, [...]

Pity the poor damselfly.  Damselflies make up the practically-ignored suborder Zygoptera in the order Odonata and are overshadowed by their flashier evolutionary cousins of the suborder Epiprocta, otherwise known as dragonflies.  Seriously, can you name a single species of damselfly off the top of your head?  Yeah, until recently I couldn’t either.  In fact, studies [...]

The Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge actually spans two states, New York and New Jersey, and has a host of species that call it home.  When Seth, Stella, and I visited on Sunday, flush from finding the birds we had been seeking, the sun had finally come out and it was late in the day [...]

Sterling Forest State Park in Orange County, NY, is well-known for its breeding population of Golden-winged Warblers, to say nothing of the yearly Renaissance Faire.  But the diverse habitat of Sterling Forest State Park supports far more than Vermivora chrysoptera, lusty wenches and mead-drinking fools; everything from bears to dragonflies find what they need to [...]

I spent a great day on Saturday, 29 May, visiting a variety of parks in Orange County and Rockland County in downstate New York with a fellow Queens birder, Seth, and a Rockland County birder, Gene.  Though, really, to call either of them “birder” doesn’t give a complete picture of what they are about considering [...]

Reserva Mangaloma in Ecuador isn’t just amazing for avifauna, but is absolutely burgeoning with amazing butterflies. From the foothills to the highlands, we were treated to stunning tropical specimens. I may not be able to put a name to these faces (if you can, please do!) but they sure are purty… Yellow-Edged Giant-Owl (Caligo atreus) [...]

I am so excited about the announcement of Ted C. MacRae‘s new beetle-based blog carnival,  An Inordinate Fondness that I delved into the vault for a special post for its inaugural issue on February 10. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you… DUNG BEETLES! Yes, only the best beetles know their way around a dollop of dung. Texas’ [...]

I’ve raved about the birds (and beaches) of Jamaica, even highlighting the island’s lovely lizards, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how much I liked its leps. Jamaica offers predictably potent butterfly watching. For example, the island is swell for swallowtail butterflies, with a number of endemics including the largest swallowtail in the [...]

I spent my weekend in upstate New York with Daisy visiting my folks and we had a good old time eating far too much food, having far too much fun, and, somewhat unfortunately, considering some of them were of the biting variety, seeing far too many bugs.  The wet summer that has been the bane [...]

Folks might remember that last year I did what I grandly called an Anti-Global Warming Big Year, the idea of which was was to see as many species as possible while burning as little carbon as possible.  To offset the carbon dioxide released from a flight to California and back from my home base in [...]