Guest Post: Don’t kill the miller moths

The moths arrived without warning. Thousands covered the walls and ceilings of the farmhouse where we lived one pandemic summer in northeastern Colorado. So many moths blanketed the spindly elm trees that they were indistinguishable from leaves until wind rattled them into flight. The trees appeared to slightly explode. They were harmless miller moths, metamorphosed […]

Guest Post: Permanent Impermanence

Assateague The waves curl in and lave the shore, drop their cargo of shells and polished glass, then withdraw, clawing back the sand. Sanderlings scatter, poke and pick, flee incoming waves, chase them back out, reverse, repeat. I stand on spongy sand, solid enough if a bit shaky, sea foam washing my feet. Somewhere to […]

The Polymorphic Spree

Earlier this month, on a night hike in Costa Rica’s Monteverde cloud forest, I made the acquaintance of the above insect, which, best I can tell, is a member of the Pterochrozinae, a group commonly known as the leaf-mimic katydids. (Entomologists, please correct me!) Walter, our guide, found this individual, which is fortunate because I […]

Hoverflying in Plain Sight

Six years ago in July I was in London for a week, and one day a bee was banging itself against the skylight at my friend’s house, over the desk where I was working. After being annoyed by it for a while—c’mon, bug, the skylight is open—it occurred to me that this wasn’t a very […]

No Mow Summer

This summer, I decided not to cut the grass in my backyard. I’ve long argued for letting a little more wildness into our gardens, but the cult of the lawn is a powerful cultural force and for years I, like most of us, have conformed and kept the back lawn mown. Ideally, I’d some day […]

Redux: Meal, Worm

Reminder: There’s protein in that there bug. (And yes, I know that “bug” and “insect” aren’t one in the same, but please allow it.) Can you stomach this redux written long before my vegetarian days? Sure you can. — I eat meat. Most kinds. Beef, pork, chicken, bison, turkey.* Dark meat, white meat, legs, breasts. […]