A lovely chapter in human history was undertaken with the formation and development of south-eastern Virginia’s Back Bay Natinal Wildlife Refuge. Formed in 1938 to provide a safe migration zone for migratory bird species, the Back Bay NWR was doubled in size to include over 9,000 acres in the 1980’s as the Virginia Beach area […]
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Where I live in south-central Pennsylvania, farmers and outdoor enthusiasts are well aware of new invasive species posing a threat to our forests and crops, like the Emerald ash borer and the Spotted lanternfly. It is easy to be lured into a myopic idea that the migration of fauna and flora mostly affects humans today
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“I’m gonna have to science the shit out of this,” says the main character of Andy Weir’s _The Martian_, and proceeded.to use every bit of his resourcefulness to harness the power of knowledge to save himself. That movie is fictional, but actual scientists have done this (Hello, COVID-19 vaccination developers, I’m talkin’ to you there).
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Fowler’s State Park is another example of the good work done to heal clearcut land and create wild spaces during the Great Depression. Located in south-central Pennsylvania, it is a 104-acre state park now, but was leveled in the first decade of the 20th century by a lumber company. Thanks to the Works Progress Administration,
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These are the white-capped rapids of the Youghiogheny River in the Pennsylvania State Park called “Ohiopyle.” One of the guides from our rafting trip there this weekend said the name came from a time when folks from the flat-land state of Ohio drove their cars too fast down one of the many mountainous roads and
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Most of us cherish the beauty of wilderness, and I venture that a lot of our feelings come from our knowledge that humans have put the environment in great danger — therefore, any non-human engineered landscapes we now consider especially precious.But people have not always looked at the non-human world in the same way: although
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Sitting almost 1,400 feet/430 meters above sea level in the Poconos Mountains is this jewel of a 44-acre lake called Sunfish Pond. No roads lead there: you have to hike in to see it. A glacial lake, formed as the last Ice Age was ending, Sunfish Pond is a tranquil and lovely element of the
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Those of us who love travelling to new places enjoy the sensation of adventure and the way it makes us open to learning new things, but few of us today risk our lives for such experiences. However, Maria Sibylla Merian was different. In 1699, this affluent 52-year old divorced mother of two left her affluent
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This first photo shows two of the roughly 1,300 specimens of minerals and gems on display in the Hillman Hall of Minerals and Gems at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. I had a chance to see the exhibit yesterday. It was wild to see jewels created out of the ash from Mount
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66 million years ago, there was a Very Bad Day for nearly everyone on the planet. That’s when the asteroid responsible for ending the age of the dinosaurs crashed into the Yucatan Peninsula and destroyed about 78% of all species.This picture from Trinidad Lake State Park in Colorado shows one of the places where the
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The Hocking Hills region of south-eastern Ohio is a jewel of an area — ravines, caves, and stone walls interweave throughout old-growth forest. Water is everywhere: streams, small cataracts, and waterfalls echo in many parts of the forest.The area was formed millions of years ago, when the Appalachian Mountains were eroding and the shallow seas
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Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio has long been a place of interest for human cultures. The Blackhand sandstone formed a series of ravines there, and coupled with the abundant water supply allowed for a micro-climate atypical for Ohio. This explains the existence of trees like black birch, Canadian yew, and hemlocks which don’t normally
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Who could showcase the spirit of American trust in mid-20th-century corporate capitalism more than Walt Disney? His ambition and vision propelled him to wild success at a myriad of ventures in his lifetime. One of these great ideas failed to pan out however, and you see that portrayed here. These watercolor images are mock-ups by
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Many, many places have I loved in London, but Highgate Cemetery has a special place in my heart. Construction began on this Victorian burial ground in 1839, when the city had long outgrown real estate for the dead. Only the very wealthy afforded tombs and mausoleums there. Tourists today can seek out the graves of
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My niece and I got to hike up Mount Tamalpais, aka “Mount Tam,” one of the most treasured State Parks in California. Cresting off the coast of Stinson Beach, Mount Tam features giant redwoods and moss-covered rocks that frame a high tree canopy — until the trails open up to the stunning ocean views you
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The Auburn State Recreation Area, 40,000 acres of land along the Middle and North Forks of the American River, almost never existed.Once a major locus of interest during the California Gold Rush, the canyon was scheduled to be dammed when it was discovered to be along a major earthquake fault line and that damming it
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This is a close-up picture that I took earlier this month near the Appalachian Trail in Central Pennsylvania of a very tiny fungus with an adorable moniker and a long pedigree for human use. Called “green elfcup” or “green wood cup,” the technical name of this mushroom is “Chloriciboria aeruginascens,” and although it is a
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Early this morning (as in, from 2:30-4:30 a.m.) my part of the world was treated to a near-total lunar eclipse. The shadow of the earth crept across the full moon’s surface, eventually turning it a reddish color (due to the refraction of light through the Earth’s shadow). As anyone who has seen a lunar eclipse
“They will see that there is in it nothing more than Natural, and nomore than the necessary result of the Motions of the Sun and Moon.” — so wrote astronomer Edmond Halley about the solar eclipse that he predicted for 1715. For millennia, eclipses – especially solar eclipses — had been considered frightening events that
These rocks from the northern shore of Lake Superior are from the dullest period in our planet’s history, apparently. Most of us humans of the early twenty-first millennium do not do well with being bored. Imagine, then, one billion years of it. From 1.8 to 800 million years ago, Earth’s life forms remained relatively
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