Explore nature, both wild and human, with Michael and Christina
I recently had the opportunity to witness one of Mother Nature’s wonders in my own yard: a caterpillar growing to full size and transforming into a butterfly, specifically an anise swallowtail. How can anyone ever be bored when nature provides us with spectacular curiosities all around us? This miracle took place in our lemon tree….
The days were already hot down in Big Bend National Park, deep in the Chihuahuan Desert, when we visited in April. The critters that live there have adapted in various ways to survive the heat. As I learned long ago from one of my favorite childhood books, Creatures of the Desert World, many animals endure this…
From our campsite near Cibola National Wildlife Refuge, we watched hundreds of sandhill cranes fly in to roost in the wetlands every evening as the sun was setting. Their calls tickled our ears and gave us goose bumps. At night we fell asleep to their intermittent calls rising up from the wetlands as well as…
Desert bighorn sheep are elusive animals that live in extremely steep and rocky desert mountains of southwestern North America, and they blend in well with their environment. Populations have declined significantly over the past 100 years, due to competition with wild horses and burros for water and forage and diseases from domestic sheep and cattle….
We were told about the herds of Roosevelt elk in Olympic National Park. The Hoh Rain Forest, and especially the banks and certain sandbars along the Hoh River were supposed to be the ideal places to spot these herds. We were nearing the end of our time in Olympic National Park, and we had walked…
We had hoped for many years to see a long-tailed weasel on a trail, or at least its tracks. Michael had a brief interaction with a weasel on the Arroyo Verde trail in Ventura while I was at work a few years back, but I had not yet seen one. We always expect to see…