Cedar waxwings love their fruit and berries, sometimes farmers’ fruits and berries too
It is not too surprising that farmers in the 1800s and 1900s hated these birds – they were an agricultural pest John James Audubon proposed calling the fruit-devourer.
There are flying squirrels in the dark overhead, with occasional visits to backyard bird feeders
Did you know there are flying squirrels in Cambridge? If you haven’t seen one, it’s probably because flying squirrels are nocturnal. If you have, it might be because the squirrel visits your bird feeder at night.
Ben Franklin’s method of preparing a turkey can’t be advised for your Thanksgiving meal
Ben Franklin experimented with killing chickens and turkeys with electricity using devices called Leyden jars, which he found made fowl meat “eat uncommonly tender.”
Meet the screech owl, and learn why these birds turn their heads three-quarters around to look
Do screech owls actually screech? To many people, that’s not their sound – and there are also misconceptions about owls’ ears, as well as surprises about their sight.
Bold jumping spiders will attack larger prey, leaping four times the length of their body
If you should happen to see a bold jumping spider inside your cellar or on your lawn furniture, let it be; it is shy and harmless, will most likely run or jump away if it detects you, and can help control insect pests.
Beautiful wood ducks belong to North America, where the birds were driven nearly to extinction
The wood duck is among the most colorful and beautiful of waterfowl. We are lucky to have them after land clearing by early settlers and commercial hunting in the 1800s.
Mourning doves have a mortality rate to cry over, but survive better than passenger pigeon cousins
Although hunters kill more than 20 million to 70 million mourning doves every year, they are prolific breeders. The United States still has more than 400 million of a bird once mistaken frequently for the now extinct passenger pigeon.
A safe landing at Logan after a bird-plane clash shows progress made since 62 deaths in 1960
No passengers were hurt when a Delta flight out of Boston on Oct. 5 ran into some birds on takeoff, but this kind of incident hasn’t always had such good outcomes.
Woolly bear caterpillars’ ability to tell the weather is less surprising than their ability for surviving it
Since colonial times, people have used the woolly bear caterpillar as a predictor of winter weather to come – and a scientist took it on himself to test the theory.
Often indistinguishable from trees’ green leaves, katydids have song that can tell the temperature
Katydids are green insects camouflaged to look like leaves and often found at the tops of trees. It is not surprising, then, that katydids are more often heard than seen.
