Habitat

Recently, I participated in a survey of mussels as part of a post-dam removal monitoring effort at the Densons Creek Nature Preserve in Troy (60 miles east of Charlotte). I joined folks from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the N.C. Natural Heritage Program as we donned wetsuits or waders and carried viewbuckets (imagine […]

Is it possible “to see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wildflower” as poet William Blake suggested? According to biologist David George Haskell, this “search for the universal within the infinitesimally small” runs through many cultures. Tibetan monks create mandalas, paintings of sand that represent the entire universe within […]

In my previous article, I explored how those of us in the South have become estranged from our grasslands. This time, I want to help us get reacquainted with some of our native grasses. Gardeners, ranchers, hunters and birders all have reason to meet these beautiful, practical and productive species. Many gardeners already know the […]

Once a myth takes hold in the fertile ground of the South, it often persists with a vengeance. Many people still believe early European settlers arrived to find an unbroken canopy of trees sheltering the Piedmont. According to Reed Noss, author of Forgotten Grasslands of the South, “The lack of awareness of native grasslands in […]

What kinds of wild animals are in the woods, and what are they up to? The Smithsonian Institution and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences have set up cameras to find out. Scroll below for a photo gallery of animal images captured as part of the eMammal project. This summer, as part of my […]

Have you ever wondered what you might see if you spent a whole weekend outside just looking? How about if you could also bring a few expert field biologists and naturalists with you? Well, that’s what we were able to at The LandTrust for Central North Carolina’s first Uwharrie Naturalist Weekend in May. More than […]

In Looking for Longleaf: The Fall and Rise of an American Forest, Lawrence Earley traced the changes in society and technology that reduced a swath of forest once covering 92 million acres to isolated pockets totaling less than 3 million acres today. In telling the story of the longleaf, the former editor of Wildlife in […]

Birds flock to Mama’s feeders this time of year. She has several seed and suet feeders hanging from the maple outside her living room window. At times, upwards of a hundred birds – maybe a dozen species – joust for perches, flit among the branches, scoot up and down and around the trunk, and scratch […]

Most water quality indicators in Mecklenburg County are “good,” but its streams are not as clean as they should be, says the county’s latest State of the Environment Report. Three of four environmental indicators in this category are rated “good” and either trending up or stable. The fourth, “streams,” is rated “fair” but stable. Read […]

Hiking the ridgelines and hillsides of the Uwharries, you pass through forests dominated by hickory, oak and sourwood. There are large patches of knee-high blueberry bushes, and the herbaceous layer is sparse. On occasion, an attentive and adventurous outdoor enthusiast might also run across natural areas that change abruptly and appear remarkably different from this […]