Author Archives: Jim Sirch

Spring has sprung in full form and many of Connecticut’s ephemeral wildflowers have now finished their frenzy of flowering before being locked in shade by newly emerging, bright green leaves of trees. A few weeks ago I was fortunate to see one of the early spring butterflies in my yard: an adult Red Admiral (VanessaContinue reading “Not So Red but Admirable”

You might think during these dreary, gray winter days that nature is dormant and there is not much to see. But here in Connecticut, and throughout much of the country, hawk-watching is easy. Hard to believe, but one of the best places to see hawks in winter is from your car. Please, keep your eyesContinue reading “That Wasn’t An Eagle You Heard”

On this Winter Solstice, the forests are now colored in various shades of tan and brown here in southern Connecticut. But here and there are patches of green. Whether they signify rebirth, a new life, immortality, or peace, plants that are still green have played an important role in almost every holiday celebration, particularly duringContinue reading “Greenery in the Winter Woods”

It’s mid-October. The Sugar Maples (Acer saccharum) are on fire this year, with deep oranges and ruby reds. You might think that most of our migrant birds have all gone by now, but that’s not true. Among others, I have been seeing flocks of Yellow-rumped Warblers (Setophaga coronata) feeding on the berries of Spicebush (LinderaContinue reading “They May Be Dragonflies, but They Certainly Ain’t Draggin’”

In traditional Irish music, there is a tune that goes by the title “Touch Me If You Dare.” The same can be said for the Spotted Touch-Me-Not (Impatiens capensis). This plant gets its common name from its fruit, which when ripe pops and releases its seeds. It’s fun to get those mature, bulging fruits, calledContinue reading “Touch Me If You Dare”

Thousands are flying through the night now. As the dog days of summer hit Connecticut, complete with heat waves full of hot, humid weather, drought, and nights filled with the raucous, sharp, three- or four-syllabled buzzing of the Common Katydid (Pterophylla camellifolia), you might not usually think of birds flying south. But they are. ThisContinue reading “While You Were Sleeping”

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”

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”

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”

I recently heard a raspy “feee-beee,” one of the sure sounds of spring—it was an Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe) singing and just back from its wintering grounds in the southeastern United States. The Eastern Phoebe is a member of the Tyrant Flycatcher family, the Tyrannidae. It has a grayish back with a darker gray headContinue reading “The Tail Wagger Returns”