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The Charming Thistle Bird
Have you heard the joke that the state bird of New Jersey is dead. Being from the Garden State, I sometimes tell that one. Actually, the New Jersey state bird is the American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis), a colorful, permanent resident native to a large part of the US. In mid-summer, when the nesting season beginsContinue reading “The Charming Thistle Bird”
Holding a Piece of Connecticut’s Tropical Sea Floor
If you could go back 500 million years in northwestern Connecticut, you would be standing at the eastern edge of the Proto-North American continent and along the shoreline of a tropical ocean. What a difference! Today the diversity of plants in this area is astonishing, largely because of the bedrock below. When most of usContinue reading “Holding a Piece of Connecticut’s Tropical Sea Floor”
These Shrubs are the Cat’s Meow
The catkins of the shrub Pussy Willow (Salix discolor) flower in early April along the edges of wetlands and wet meadows in southern Connecticut. On a damp, early spring day these flowers on bare stems light up the landscape like a collection of bright stars in a dark sky. The fuzzy, silvery catkins look likeContinue reading “These Shrubs are the Cat’s Meow”
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Beyond Your Back Door 