Five years ago, almost to the day, I finally broke down to the idea of buying a Digital Single Lens Reflex camera. A DSLR would give me better images, would get me closer to birds, and would ultimately give me more control, going back to… Read More
Welcome to Wingtrip’s Natural History Lexicon, a regular rundown of natural history terms. To find future and past posts on this subject, simply search “natural history lexicon” or find it in the tags. Thanks for reading! Apothecium Noun \a-pə-ˈthē-shē-əm\ -a spore-bearing structure in many… Read More
Like many writers, I keep a (sometimes) daily journal about my life and the natural history events, largely bird related, that I experience. The following blog posts, organized by month are excerpts from my summer living and working the San Juan Islands of Washington State.… Read More
Tidewrack Noun -Seaweed and similar marine vegetation and rubbish deposited along a shore by a receding tide. Cruise the shoreline of a tidal water. Notice irregularities strewn across beach length horizons. Whether the beach is rocky or sandy, it makes no difference to the water,… Read More
Botanists, don’t read the next line. Ok? Good. I don’t like doing vegetation surveys. Ok, you can start reading again. Plants and animals are inexorably bound. If you have even the vaguest interest in the natural world, you should claim fealty to Kingdom Plantae. Knowing… Read More
Dawn slips near and sounds of night meld with morning. Large things move about in the dewy spring grass. Despite myself, lying comfortably in bed, I think of strange, terrible monsters and the quiet house I slept alone in, not the Black-tailed Deer that are… Read More
Thanks for visiting Wingtrip. This post is a part of a project called Visualizing the Pitayal. Click here for an explanation of the project. Click here for a complete listing of all the posts in the project so far, to start at the beginning. And if you are impressed… Read More
Strip malls are the essence of vitriol, rising at the back of my throat. Who do people need several Starbucks or Walgreen’s within blocks of each other? The driver of the truck that was pushing us through this distracting mess of concrete read my mind.… Read More
It’s rather amusing to think about the Summer Solstice in the Pacific Northwest, especially considering the weather today. Here in Seattle, we don’t consider it summer until after the fourth of July. Yet many of the breeding birds are done singing by then, having had… Read More
Shoving as much natural history as a place holds into the space of five days will never promise restfulness. During the course of a few days we drove hundreds of miles in pursuit of birds, mammals, and reptiles. I’m feeling pretty pooped just thinking about… Read More
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