Jeanine Farley

by | Sep 21, 2024 | Wild Things |

Snipe are real and in the sandpiper family. They even live in Massachusetts, and some people hunt them. And whatever you have heard, you cannot catch them by holding open a gunnysack in the woods.

The eastern meadowlark ( Sturnella magna ) is a lovely yellow-breasted bird with a black V on its chest. The name is a bit of a misnomer – meadowlarks are not larks at all, but rather members of the blackbird family. At least as the name implies, they do frequent meadows (and grasslands and hayfields).

by | Oct 5, 2024 | Wild Things | Ambush bugs are just assassin bugs who hide, gripping larger prey tight and injecting venom

by | Oct 19, 2024 | Wild Things | Blackpoll warblers are so, so tiny, yet might fly 7,500 miles at a time for their annual migration

When Europeans first settled these shores in the 1600s, Canada geese were abundant and praised for reasons modern fans may find hard to relate to: “so fat,” a hunter raved, “the flesh far more excellent” than the fowl of England.

by | Nov 2, 2024 | Wild Things | The barred owl is a different stripe of the species, hunting little rodent prey sometimes in daylight

by | Nov 9, 2024 | Wild Things | Bobwhites are fragile birds, freezing in the cold and freezing when cornered by a hunter's dog

by | Nov 16, 2024 | Wild Things | Of course white-tailed deer have four stomachs: These creatures are always eating and running

We have turkeys to thank for TV dinners because in 1953, one company overestimated how many turkeys it would sell for Thanksgiving – and it couldn't just keep the trains running back and forth to stay refrigerated forever. Somerville played a role too.