Susan Pike

Many of the flowers in my garden are flowering or about to flower. But did you know that many of our native (and non-native) grasses are also beginning to flower? This isn’t so great for those of us with pollen allergies, but if you can take the time to really look, you will discover a remarkable world on a blade of grass.

My first sighting of a snapping turtle this spring seemed an auspicious start to turtle season.

When I think of wildflowers in New England, I think about those spring ephemerals like Lady’s slippers, trillium and the Canada mayflower. Or flowers blooming now like milkweed, yarrow, chicory, black-eyed Susans and, later, the goldenrods and asters.

There is one animal present in our greater backyard that I urge everyone to try to see at least once in the wild − the Atlantic puffin.

Do you remember when you were a kid and came upon a puffball in the woods? How much fun it was to squeeze them and puff out that cloud of spores? I still enjoy doing this. I figure I'm giving the puffball a hand in its reproductive cycle. Without my help, the most common way puffballs release their spores is through the impact of raindrops or from small animals bumping into them, ejecting the spores en masse in a cloud that looks like a puff of smoke (hence the name).

I’ve been noticing more than one ruby-throated hummingbird at my feeder recently. Two, sometimes even three, sharing the feeder. None of these have the ruby-throat of an adult male. So, these are either females or immature males.

Both the milkweed tussock and the monarch caterpillars eat the cardiac glycoside-laden milky sap of milkweed.

I want to open a door to nature that will enhance my students' skills and at the same time instill a curiosity and love of the natural world.

A naturalist friend, when needing to kill some time on expeditions, has a favorite question for his guests: Can you name the three birds that hover in flight? Most people come up with birds like hummingbirds and kestrels, to which the naturalist replies, "You have one right." This is because, in fact, the only type of bird known to hover using only its muscles is the hummingbird.

Portsmouth Herald Jewelweed is favorite food of migrating ruby-throated hummingbirds: How to grow it Link Copied