Ringwood State Park in northern New Jersey is about as close as you can get to New York and not cross the border. A Saturday afternoon there with Daisy and her family was a stomach-stuffing experience of monumental proportions. We had a good time and enjoyed the outdoors, the company, and did I [...]

The striking beetle above was the coolest thing I saw in my stroll around Five Rivers EEC this evening. I have no idea what it is. I also spent some time near blooming apple trees hoping to get pictures of other cool bugs but had no luck (I have been carrying my macro [...]

While visiting my grandmother today I took some time to investigate what bugs were hanging out on her lilac bushes. There were lots of cool bugs, but nothing could top this Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.

It was such a gorgeous specimen that I followed it when it flew to the other lilac bush!

A day with the [...]

A recent walk around Papscanee Island, on the same day I saw the American Robin’s nest, rewarded me with some cool pictures of insects. A Six Spotted Tiger Beetle is above, an insect with a confusing name not explained by the helpful people at whatsthatbug.com who identified it for me:

This is a Tiger Beetle. [...]

Lang Elliott and Wil Hershberger (Houghton Mifflin, May 2007)

A book and CD on North American “singing insects” (the crickets, katydids, grasshoppers, and cicadas) being reviewed on a bird blog. What’s going on Charlie…?

I’ll tell you what: I think that ‘inside every birder is a naturalist trying to get outside’, and every birder I know [...]

The acquisition of a new field guide is always a joyous occasion, signaling either an impending journey or impending answers to old questions. By the latter, I’m referring to those unclosed cases that accumulate any time a nature lover ventures outdoors armed with a camera but not a clue. As you can imagine, my digital [...]

Some years ago I thought that birds were where “natural history” started and birds were where “natural history” finished. Yes, there were Tigers and Snow Leopards, I wanted to Save the Whale, those glossy-red mushrooms that could kill you from across the room were pretty cool in a morbid kind of way, hairy spiders and [...]

Savannah Sparrow at Papscanee
Getting out of work a bit early today was perhaps the most wonderful thing to happen all week.  It finally felt like spring, with temperatures in the sixties and this wierd yellow-white object that gave off lots of light and warmth from the clear blue sky.  When I asked someone about it [...]

Along with the expected assortment of bird books for Christmas, I received a butterfly guide, specifically the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies. Readers of this blog know that I, like so many birders before me, am developing a growing interest in the invertebrate life I encounter in my travels. Dragonflies and [...]

Though I’m interested in all aspects of natural history, my focus these days is (obviously) on birds. Still, I’ve always been very interested in invertebrates, particularly dragonflies. My usual practice is to take a picture of any fascinating specimen that sits still long enough to allow it in the hope that one day I’ll be [...]

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
I think hobnobbing with so many fantastic bug bloggers is getting to me because I find myself paying increased attention to invertebrates out in the field. I’m particularly enjoying butterflies, moths, and dragonflies, the species most bird watchers seem to be susceptible to. In some cases, these creatures are hard to ignore. The [...]

The biodiverse expanse of the Everglades is a lepidopterist’s delight, serving up really sensational butterfly species. However, the non-avian critter that really caught my attention during my trip to Loxahatchee NWR was the big, beautiful Lubber Grasshopper.
The Eastern Lubber Grasshopper (Romalea guttata or Romalea microptera) is fairly common throughout the southeastern United States, particularly Florida. [...]

Most residents of New York state, particularly those who can muster a glance at the treetops now and again, are familiar with the writhing, webby nests of the Eastern Tent Caterpillar (Malacosoma americanum), though few have a solid idea what they’re observing. I’m embarrassed to say that until recently, as in just a couple of [...]

We’re just about at that point in the winter season where I start daydreaming about glorious, sun-drenched days of summers past. The source of some of my favorite tropical, or more accurately, Neotropical memories is the trip Sara and I took to Belize in July 2003. Though we embarked on a week’s worth of [...]