Oct 3, 2024
As our water taxi motored into the harbor, a gray-headed water
bird floated around the corner of a barnacle-crusted rock. A
Pacific Loon!
Having spotted one new species of loon, my interest in seeing the
others grew. The afternoon that I arrived at the Toolik Field
Station to prepare for doing caribou research, I took a...
Sep 26, 2024
A small group of first graders nearly vibrated with excitement as they gathered in a circle on the carpet at the front of their room. They remembered me from last school year, when I’d brought tubs full of nature stuff to their kindergarten classroom. For those first Museum Mobile visits, we focused on exploring...
Sep 19, 2024
Floating down the river, exploring the side canyons, relaxing around camp, I was always on the lookout for both the novel and the familiar. A giant insect I’d never seen before but knew immediately to be a Tarantula-hawk Wasp caught my attention just as easily as the glossy black feathers of a Common Raven. After a...
Sep 12, 2024
Due to a stuffy nose, I’m not recording a new episode for you this week. I did pull forward this episode from 2023 about the elk herd near Clam Lake.
Morning mist hung low in the sky as a dozen elk ran across a clearing. A similarly sized herd of Museum members held our breath and grinned at our good luck. It was...
Sep 5, 2024
Curtains of vibrant lights were moving just above the horizon. The aurora! My jaw must have dropped as I stumbled backward to lean against the car, and tears welled up as I tilted my head back for a better view. The moon hung full and bright on my east. To my west, spruce trees were silhouetted against the faint, rosy...