Nature Notes

The coldest weather of the year visited us on the 16th of January. I caught a local weather report that stated that it missed the expected coldest day by one day. This was news to me and I wasn't sure what he meant, so I began investigating.

It would make sense that the shortest day of the year should also be the coldest day of the year since lack of sun would seem to mean lack of warmth. However, it takes two weeks to a month for different parts of our earth to catch up with the ...

I have been so struck this winter by the beauty of the white bark of the Sycamores' standing out so brightly among the darker trees that stand in their shadows. Along the Shenandoah River, they can be seen in great number. Graceful arms stretching out to greet the sun, cheerful even in the dullest of days.




Closer inspection shows them to be ladies who love their ...

Peck....Peck....Peck....Peck.... and so it continues throughout the day. The bright male cardinal attacks his image that he sees in my bay window. He exhausts himself everyday, determined to win the battle of protecting his domain from intruders.

Research shows that this behavior is common among the male and female cardinals. Both are known to fight aggressively with their same sex colleages ...

I miss hearing all the birds singing in the morning that come in warmer weather, but the crows can still be guaranteed to make themselves known. These mornings, their calls seem more poignant and mournful. I am still glad for their company.

I love traveling to work early in the morning on roads along nature's path, but one doesn't have to travel far if one is attentive to their surroundings to see our naked trees full of some large and strange fruit. The black silhoutte of the tree ...

I have been finding stink bugs just about everywhere in cleaning and trying to finish unpacking in this house. Their migrating into homes to brave the winters remind me much of the Asian Ladybug Beetles (Harmonia axyridis) that was so common in the Ohio Valley. The funny thing to me is that these stink bugs don't seem to stink all that much whereas the ladybugs were nothing but one great stink. Neither of these insects seem to be the same as I remember from my childhood. Investigation proves that ...