In the past decade I have blogged news and views on a nature theme 300 times. Visitors can access these posts in archives and the sister domain, Jamestowne Bookworks. I am taking a break fro… Read More

Mother and Child by Mary Cassatt, 1880 This blog has a nature theme, but the author also publishes news and views about reproductive medicine and science in long form on Substack. Please… Read More

African Wild Dogs in Moremi National Game Park I scanned the horizon with binoculars for game, but my local guide always spotted it first with his telescopic eyes. He swiveled his head fr… Read More

Thirteen-year brood of a Magicicada species If you hear ringing in your ears this month it could be the chorus of millions of cicadas, so don’t worry about getting tinnitus! The l… Read More

Zebras in the Okavango DeltaI was more lucky than shrewd in choosing to visit the northern Kalahari and Okavango Delta in Botswana at the start of the wet season and shortly before Christmas… Read More

Elephant in Okavango Delta There is something magisterial about the biggest living things on Earth. We are the most intelligent, the most prolific, and the most polluting species but we d… Read More

Baines Baobabs, December 2023 Of all the trees I have ever seen in Africa the Baobabs are at the forefront of memory.  I saw my first specimen in the sandveld of Nxai Pans in north… Read More

My view from a window seat hardly changed on the flight from Johannesburg to Maun in northern Botswana. I rarely saw a farm or lodge in the khaki-colored plains below. A few gulleys ran ir… Read More

Did you have dreams in the sod where you lay,Of resting in your mother’s pod each day,Before sleeping through winter’s chill?And now alone, snug under frost’s stillWith… Read More

Elephant skull, Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana A ship’s voyage can be a metaphor for our journey through life. Sometimes ships pass within hailing distance of each other. Sometimes t… Read More

True companions If you loved an animal and have felt it loving you back (more than just from trained obedience) you probably wondered how it perceives you and itself.  I long to know… Read More

Black Kite. Rahul Viswanath (Unsplash) I’m not a movie buff, but occasionally something I see stirs me to make a recommendation. When I woke about 30,000 feet above the Congo, I scr… Read More

USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023The USDA updated the Plant Hardiness Zone this week, changing our zone to 8A. This is an example of how climate change is affecting gardens and farms throug… Read More

Drought Monitor for Virginia “Drought—what drought?” That was a typical response to my question before this week’s news of wildfires in Virginia and the Governor d… Read More

This week you can tell a Brit from the red poppy worn on his or her lapel. Today, I was a lone poppyist in the congregation for a Veterans Day service in the graveyard of Grace Episcopal Chu… Read More

Poem read by the author: https://youtu.be/OFiM0xGgF5o We’re alive within the flames’ bright glow,Dancing, enhancing, flashing in our strife.We’re children of the woo… Read More

My electronic calendar reminds me it is the autumnal equinox and the first day of another season. Wildlife has its own calendars and clocks. The hummingbirds who pay hourly visits to our… Read More

Mix of non-native garden plants I make a distinction between two groups of non-native species that settle down and reproduce outside their homeland. The bad guys include Asian hornets… Read More

Excavator transferring rock from a ship on York River I reported last year about shoring up Jamestown Island to avoid incursions from the James River. Simple measurements with a conductiv… Read More

Pocahontas County, WV If you go on a road trip through the Appalachian mountains you will see lots of old abandoned houses. I often wonder who lived there and why they left. Please click… Read More

White clover on my lawnYou know spring has arrived when the aisles of big-box stores are filled with sacks of grass seed, lawn fertilizers, and garden poisons. The suburban obsession with gr… Read More

The James River I prevented our dogs from wading at Jamestown Beach today. The rising tide carried a floating mat of yellow scum. I suspected pollution, which made me wonder about the mea… Read More

Tree Swallow. Photo: Patrice Bouchard, UnsplashOn the last day of winter, I saw my first Tree Swallow of the year. It flew beside the James River in the direction of Jamestown Island. Soc… Read More

Bohemian lake: UnsplashOn this somber first anniversary of the war in Ukraine and anticipating a spring offensive, I expected to read historical reflections in the media about the invasion o… Read More

Photo: Unsplash (photographer unknown) Two fully-grown coyotes crossed the road in front of us at 10 AM today before I turned into Jamestown Beach. A patrolman told me he had seen others… Read More

Photo: Inge Curtis On Valentine’s Day, I queried an AI bot about the idealistic love that Ancient Greeks called agape and compare it with the romantic notion of love. This is how it… Read More

Unsplash: Julia Craice The sun is setting in the west, The Spoonbills fly with no rest, Their wings are strong and they will go, Until they reach their winter home. (Poetic st… Read More

In icy ground . . . Daffodils sprout forth, bright buds In yellow hues, their faces Smiling in the cold earth, Promising springtime to us all. (Style of a Japanese tanka in 31… Read More

Photo: Inge Curtis “… suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. “’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, &ldquo… Read More

Guess the replies if you ask if wasps and flies have any virtues. Many people wish them extinct, but they are important pollinators along with wild bees, honeybees, and lepidoptera. T… Read More

Photo: Inge CurtisThese cute warblers are resident in this region year-round but seen more often in fall and winter when more northerly breeders join their brethren in this warmer clime. As… Read More

European Starling murmuration (James Wainscoat: Unsplash)The United Nations estimates that our population reached 8 billion this week. In 1900, it was 1.6 billion but by the turn of the 21st… Read More

Photo: Ryk Naves (Unsplash)We heard a different owl calling in the woods behind our home today at twilight, not the familiar sound of Barred Owls. It hooted softly, as a tiger might purr to… Read More

Superyacht resembling one owned by a Russian oligarchAs world leaders prepared for COP27 in Egypt, the acclaimed French economist, Thomas Piketty, warned in La Monde, “It is impossible… Read More

Robert Morris operating at Bellevue Hospital, NY, c. 1895The Long Stillwater is a chapter Robert Morris, M.D. wrote to celebrate a love of nature from a trove of memories. Stillwater is hard… Read More

Deer munch on our flower borders, strip foliage to head height, and rub bark off trees with their antlers in the rutting season. We grumble yet feel sad coming across a beautiful animal that… Read More

Eskimo Curlew. From Audubon’s The Birds of AmericaMemories of the Canadian wilderness forty years earlier were still sharp in Dr. Robert Morris’s mind as an old man in the 1930s… Read More

Photo: Inge CurtisAn elegant shorebird with a lovely piping call of the wild. After they leave their breeding grounds in the tundra,  Whimbrels stop to feed on fiddler crabs in the mudf… Read More

Erosion control on Jamestown Island, VAHistoric Jamestown celebrated Archeology Day today with various events and demonstrations to make history seem more authentic. Artifacts discovered on… Read More

Published September 2022Why should anyone care about my debut novel for middle-grade schoolchildren? THE BOY WHO COULD BEE was inspired by poring over my beehives and written under a pen nam… Read More

A victim of nature’s wrathSuddenly Uncle Henry stood up. “There’s a cyclone coming …” he said. Thus, began Dorothy’s voyage over the Kansas prairie with… Read More

Queen bee ‘crowned’ with a dot (Boba Jaglicic, Unsplash)While observing expressions of public affection and admiration for Queen Elizabeth II from afar, I began to muse about… Read More

We are no longer Elizabethans. This view is one of my first memories, from sitting on my father’s shoulders as the golden state coach paraded along the Mall after the Coronation. A sym… Read More

Silver Hand Meadery, Williamsburg, VAPlans for the morning were interrupted when I heard the Silver Hand Meadery in Williamsburg was filling glasses for all-comers this morning. And why? It… Read More

Barth Bailey (Unsplash)Do you fly at night sometimes? I flew in my dreams last night with arms outstretched for gliding over rooftops. I didn’t see any birds although on landing back i… Read More

Photo: Inge CurtisSpotting a Scarlet Tanager in the upper story of an Eastern Forest transports me to the tropics. And it is a tropical forest dweller in our winter months. Our Northern C… Read More

Ozone hole shrinking in the southern hemisphere (NASA, 2021)Did you ever regret you hadn’t met someone after hearing it was too late? I did today. James Lovelock was one of my scientif… Read More

Lilah (Golden Retriever, 2010-2022)We released Lilah today, sending her along the path ahead of us. “You can run to the end and wait for us there!” The path feels empty without o… Read More

Photo: Inge Curtis Almost all the Yellow-rumps have left for breeding grounds in the north. They are a pleasure to welcome back in the garden in early fall, quite unmistakable with their… Read More

NASA: public domain image The first astronauts described Earth with mystical awe as a vulnerable pearl in the barren wastes of space. It had looked the same since before the rise of mamma… Read More