Wild Wild Woods

This beauty was in my studio this morning! I collect plant specimens in the autumn and keep them to draw or paint indoors during the c...

In summer, the Agastache blooms blue and provides sweet nectar for bees and butterflies.  Now, the seed heads stand in sunlight, a favor...

Walking through the woods in snow. Some plants display interesting winter personalities, very different from their growing season garb. ...

photo by Julie Pritschet

  A pair of Red-bellied Woodpeckers live in the wild wild woods.  This winter, they come to the feeder tray one at...

Camouflage of brown and gray and buff.  The outfit allows a sparrow to blend in among the leaves and litter while hunting for seeds, frui...

White-breasted Nuthatches forage up, down, and sideways on tree trunks and around large branches. They often start high in a tree and move...

Wandering in the woods, I came upon this rock.  It has been there a long while and I've walked by it before.  But today it looked more ...

The veggie garden has been transitioned to a feeder garden for birds and pollinators.  This year --  among the tomatoes, beans, peas, and...

Stripes in the grass!  The chipmunks Tamias striatus often hang out beneath the feeder tray.  They can hide among the raspberry canes and sa...

female Northern Cardinal Cardinalis cardinalis on birch The winter "guild" of feeder birds is forming.  The adult birds in t...

The hummingbirds have been filling up on nectar for their migration south in coming days.  This is the latest date I've seen Ruby-thr...

One leaf of Common Milkweed was being devoured by both a caterpillar and a beetle.  I wonder if either knew the other was there?

Indianpipe Monotropa uniflora  is white because it contains no chlorophyll;  it derives water and other nutrients by tapping into the thread...

I always try to grow sunflowers as food for the birds. This big one was gorgeous before it fully bloomed, as well as ...

This year, we put a dry branch up as a perch extending from one of the feeder poles.  It is the favorite spot for t...

Tree Swallows Tachycineta bicolor , who line their nests with found feathers, fledged their five young out of the nestbox a few days ago.  T...

   Red Baneberry, also known as Toadroot and Chinaberry, grows in shady damp areas.   The white flowers grow in spikes that bloom dur...

The Downy Woodpecker parents are busy feeding the young birds in their tree cavity nest.  Every few minutes, one of them brings a worm or ...

The pair of Downy Woodpeckers, seen on May 15 excavating a nest cavity in the wild wild woods, have successfully hatched their clutch of 6...

Worms?  Monsters? These are “finger galls”. Insects or mites feeding on a leaf, or laying eggs on or injecting eggs into part of...

A pair of Tree Swallows Tachycineta bicolor are nesting in one of several nest boxes near the wild wild woods.  Today she laid the third ...

In a corner of the woods, hidden in one of several nest boxes, a mother Black-capped Chickadee Poecile atrcapillus feeds her young nestli...

  A House Wren Troglodytes aedon carries twigs, one at a time, to a nest box. The male works until he fills the box with twigs, leav...

top left: Arisaema triphyllum Jack-in-the-Pulpit; top middle: Geranium maculatum Wild Geranium;  top right: Asarum canadense Wild...