field notes

My first video post!

You know how when you're a kid you want to climb everything? Tables, curtains, trees, chicken coops, cars -- you name it. Well, that inclination never really left me, and in August 2012 I was able to satiate those childhood urges under the guise of "work!" Leaving the Florida summer behind, I packed all my … Continue reading Into the Trees

Click map above for enlarged image I spent the first half of 2012 wandering Florida's Lake Wales Ridge, an elevated, sandy spine that runs for 115 miles through the center of the state. A million years ago when peninsular Florida was largely underwater, higher elevations on the Ridge resulted in a series of islands which, … Continue reading Life in the Scrub

Here is the (largely pictorial) summation of my last wanderings in the desert; please forgive my extreme procrastination.   Mexican Campion, Silene laciniata.  You can see a closely related N.C. species (Silene virginica) in my July 2011 post about the Southern Appalachians. Forefront: Century Plant, Agave havardiana In mid-October Ben, Alex and I headed up … Continue reading Last Days in the Desert

Blackfoot Daisy (Melampodium leucantham) The Silver Creek area of Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge So, what makes a desert? Lack of water, right? But why exactly do deserts lack water? There are a few possible explanations. Firstly, the simple fact of being far from the ocean, which is where most of the world’s atmospheric moisture originates, … Continue reading Rattlesnakes and Jewel Bugs

“Water, water, water…There is no shortage of water in the desert but exactly the right amount, a perfect ratio of water to rock, of water to sand, insuring that wide, free, open, generous spacing among plants and animals, homes and towns and cities, which makes the arid West so different from any other part of … Continue reading A Rich Sparseness

Common Milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, is at first glance merely another pretty roadside wildflower making those long drives a bit more bearable. Growing up to six feet tall, it stands above the jewelweed and Monarda, showing off its spherical umbels of pink-purple blooms as if they were tiny planets orbiting the stem. It even emits a … Continue reading The Southern Appalachians