he grass divides as with a comb,A spotted shaft is seen;And then it closes at your feetAnd opens further on ——Emily Dickinson, The Snake This is a common snake within its range, averaging 42-72 inches in length, with a diameter at the widest section of its body of 1.5 inches and typically weighing 1 – 5 […]
Black Rat Snake (Pantherophis obsoletus) Read More »
The guanaco, or wild llama, is the characteristic quadruped of the plains of Patagonia; it is the South American representative of the camel of the East. It is an elegant animal in a state of nature, with a long slender neck and fine legs. It is very common over the whole of the temperate parts
Guanaco (Lama guanicoe) Read More »
“I think he’ll be to Rome/As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it/By sovereignty of nature.” Coriolanus, William Shakespeare The more common name for this bird is osprey, but it also is known as a sea hawk or fish hawk. Osprey have a wide distribution across North America and are found along the coasts
Seahawk (Osprey) Pandion haliaetus Read More »
his isle abounds with an infinite number of fowl, as Fulmar, Lavy, Falk, Bowger, etc.—A Late Voyage to St. Kilda, Martin Martin (1698). The northern fulmar is a pelagic bird of the northern oceans – it spends the vast majority of its life at sea and only comes to land to breed. They are related
Northern fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis) Read More »
Fish gotta swim and bird gotta fly; insects, it seems, gotta do one horrible thing after another. –Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. These are among the most common invertebrates in the environment but are rather inconspicuous because of their size. They are about 1/16th to 1/8th inch long, have three pairs of legs, a moderately long
Springtails (subclass Collembola) Read More »