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Wild Georgia with Charles Seabrook
Mockingbird’s feistiness continues through winter
One of my hobbies is to go through old journals on botany, ornithology and other nature-related subjects to find fascinating tidbits about wildlife.For instance, while recently thumbing through the December 1936 issue of the Wilson Bulletin (a publication of the still extant Wilson Ornithological Society), I found an article titled, ...
Big spiders and bugs conspicuous in September
September is prime time for some of Georgia’s biggest — and most fascinating — arachnids, insects and caterpillars. Among the arachnids, the most prominent attention-getters now are the big orb-weaving spiders, whose huge, wheel-shaped webs seem to be everywhere — stretched between shrubs and trees on hiking trails and garden ...
Goatsuckers’ calls pierce a summer night
Country music singer Randy Travis crooned in one of my favorite songs that his love for his sweetheart is “longer than the song of a whip-poor-will.” I pondered this the other evening as I sat with a friend on his back porch in southeast DeKalb County and listened to a ...
Come out a winner during mosquito season
The climbing temperatures coupled with abundant summer rain mean metro Atlantans can expect to hear that irritating high-pitched whine near their ears when outside. Mosquitoes are back. Experts from Orkin to the University of Georgia release lists yearly of ways to cut down on the biting pests or protect yourself. ...
The Eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly is aptly named
The purple-flowered butterfly bush in my front yard has burst into bloom; already it’s luring swarms of Eastern tiger swallowtails to its rich nectar. The same is true for the lantana bush by the mailbox.The strikingly beautiful, black-and-yellow butterflies, common all over Georgia, are often taken for granted, but I ...
Mid-June is the time to stop and smell the roses
Goodness! I can’t believe it. It’s mid-June already — “knee-deep in June,” as James Whitcomb Riley said in one of my favorite poems. The first day of summer, which is also the longest day of the year, is just ahead. The season starts at 1:04 a.m. on June 21.Each day ...
A killdeer’s feigned injury lures away predators
My wife and I were picking strawberries on a farm near Lizella in Bibb County last weekend when I noticed a brownish, dove-sized bird struggling between the rows of strawberry plants. It seemed barely able to walk, let alone fly. I knew immediately that it was a killdeer — and ...
A supermarket in the woods
Most of us probably are familiar with — and may have partaken of — some of Georgia’s most common “wild edibles,” such as blackberries, wild muscadines and persimmons.But Georgia’s wild places harbor dozens of less-recognized native plants whose various parts also can be eaten and enjoyed for their tastiness and ...
South Carolina naturalist strives to learn hummingbird secrets
Just when I thought I knew a lot about ruby-throated hummingbirds, I realized that I still have a lot to learn after listening last weekend to naturalist Bill Hilton Jr., one of the South’s foremost hummingbird experts.Hilton drove over to Atlanta from his home in York, S.C., to share with ...
A glimpse of the elusive yellow-billed cuckoo
During a visit the other morning to the Clyde Shepherd Nature Preserve near my home on the outskirts of Decatur, I got my best view ever of a yellow-billed cuckoo, one of Georgia’s most elusive — and peculiar — songbirds. It appeared almost directly in front of me and I ...
Mother Nature gives us a million shades of green
With trees and shrubs decked out in their spiffy new spring foliage, this is the time of year to appreciate nature’s most important and pervasive color, green. Georgia’s woods, fields, marshes, swamps and other wild places seem to sport every shade of green imaginable right now. I’m not sure how ...
Provide nest-building material to attract birds
Our cardinals, robins, bluebirds, mockingbirds, titmice and other year-round avian residents kicked off the spring nesting season in early March. Now, the season is shifting into high gear as our neo-tropical migrants — warblers, thrushes, buntings, tanagers, ruby-throated hummingbirds and others — return from winter homes in the southern tropics ...
A pilgrimage to celebrate April wildflowers
April, my most favorite month, is when the landscape bursts into 50 shades of green and wildflowers sport every hue of the rainbow. “April hath put a spirit of youth in everything,” Shakespeare said in Sonnet 98.And what better way to celebrate it than to be part of the Georgia ...
Endangered Species Act helps the Indiana bat
The endangered Indiana bat, known for its huge appetite for flying insects, is a tiny creature, weighing about as much as three pennies. The species was thrust into the spotlight the other day when news reports revealed that a lone bat had been detected in Gilmer County and had delayed ...
That mystery bird might be a dull-colored female
The blue jay that landed on the tulip poplar just outside my window earlier this week was quickly joined by another blue jay — a courting pair, I assumed. I couldn’t tell, though, which was male or female: A blue jay’s color pattern is the same, regardless of its sex. ...
Blooming mayhaws mean jelly is on the way
Along creek bottoms and swampy areas from Texas to North Carolina, small, thorny trees known as mayhaws are blooming, sporting a profusion of fragrant, white blossoms.In some areas, the mayhaw, a species of hawthorn, may rival the dogwood as an icon of spring (which arrives at 7:02 a.m. on March ...
Year-round songbirds ready for romance
It is early March, and romance is on the minds of many of our year-round songbirds. Their plumages are at their spiffiest and their voices are as fine-tuned as they will be all year. They seem anxious to get on with the task of baby-rearing. For some, the season already ...
Examining lichens up close reveals a fascinating world
They go by names like smooth blue jellyskin, scaly dog-pelt, bumpy rim, bloody-cored beard, frosty saucer and yellow- glow wart. They are lichens, some of Earth’s most amazing organisms. Chances are good that you have numerous lichen species growing in your yard. They grow on just about any surface — ...
Count the birds and become a ‘citizen scientist’
Want to be a scientist for a little while? Then spend at least 15 minutes this weekend and through Monday counting the individual birds and species that you see and hear in your yard, your neighborhood or elsewhere. Then, report the results at www.BirdCount.org — all part of the annual ...
Twigs and buds help identify trees in winter
Most of our deciduous trees and shrubs of the forest are devoid of leaves, blooms and fruits this time of year. Still, it’s fun and even useful to be able to identify trees and shrubs by their other basic characteristics — bark, buds, twigs, leaf scars, branching patterns and the ...
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