By Rachel Sargent Mirus Birds use a wonderful variety of materials and techniques to create their nests. Some nests are small and tidy, like grass baskets lined with cozy feathers. Others are large and messily blobbed with mud. Some species […]
Tag: By Rachel Sargent Mirus
Column, The Outside Story
Cozy cattails feed bugs and birds
By Rachel Sargent Mirus On a winter day, I drove down to a nearby wetland bisected by a town road and walked carefully onto the ice. I was looking for cattail heads to dissect so I could meet the caterpillars […]
Column, The Outside Story
Fungi may kill winter ticks, and help moose survive
By Rachel Sargent Mirus Legend says a stake through the heart will kill a vampire. But it’s a bit more complicated if you’re plagued – as moose can be – by tens of thousands of tiny blood-suckers. In the case […]
Column, The Outside Story
Lichen colors offer protection
By Rachel Sargent Mirus As I stroll through the cemetery near my home on a snowy day, splashes of golden orange, bright as daylilies in July, pop from the gray stones. These patches are elegant sunburst lichens, which provide a […]
Column, The Outside Story
Decomposing into the rainbow
By Rachel Sargent Mirus As we stroll down a forest trail, we pass trees of all types and sizes, with red and orange and brown leaves strewn below, a riot of ferns fading to yellow, and intermittent moss-covered rocks. Amongst […]
Column, The Outside Story
Blister beetles use chemical defense to deter predators
By Rachel Sargent Mirus “I’ve got something for you,” my husband calls from the front door. He’s found an oddly beautiful beetle in the autumn woods. It’s around of an inch long, a dark iridescent teal, and its wings and […]
2021 E-Editions
Mountain Times – Volume 50, Number 40 – Oct. 6-12, 2021
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Column, The Outside Story
On the lookout for digger wasps
By Rachel Sargent Mirus Last summer while working in the garden, I was startled when a fast-flying wasp dropped a plump pumpkin spider on the soil in front of me. The wasp landed, grabbed the spider, and wiggled backwards into […]
Column, The Outside Story
Kleptoparasitism: parasitism by theft
By Rachel Sargent Mirus Picture a robin, out in the morning and hopping around the park. It finds breakfast in the form of a worm, but out of the nearby trees swoops a bigger bird. The bigger bird acts threatening, […]