By Wendy Langhans The other day, my Dad and I were exploring Frog Alley, part of the Vernon Wildlife Area in southeastern Wisconsin.  We spotted some Canada Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis), one of the most common of the 24 different species of Goldenrod in Wisconsin. And true to their name, these flowers brightened the lush green meadow with deep golden swatches. ...

By Wendy Langhans Have you ever watched a wound heal? Bleeding, followed by a scab, which falls off revealing pinkish skin that eventually changes back to skin color. Healing is a process, involving a series of changes over time. Ecologists also study changes over time; they refer to this process as succession: “a process of ecological change in which a ...

By Wendy Langhans Here’s a rule of thumb about “rules of thumb”:  professionals take measurements and amateurs use a “rule of thumb”.  For example, suppose you want to know what the weather will be like this evening. If you’re a meteorlogist, you rely on measurements from the National Weather Service office in Oxnard.  If you’re a mom, you remind your ...

by Wendy Langhans   Handles on bags. Such a simple thing, but it allows us to carry more than we otherwise could. That’s true for us and also true for pollen-carrying insects. When we think of pollen, we think of tiny, mustard-yellow powdery grains, the kind that stick to beetles and bees.   But not all pollen is packaged that ...

By Wendy Langhans This weekend, as we celebrate the 4th of July, we pay a special tribute to those who have and are now serving our country.  This weekend my family is also celebrating my father’s 88th birthday.  Ansel Burton Bratberg served in the Army Air Corps during WWII, flying 42 combat missions in a B-17 over Europe. So, in ...

By Wendy Langhans What does “The Boomerang” principle” and the “Different Strokes” principle have in common? We’ve all heard of these principles; we may have even quoted them ourselves. The Boomerang principle can be found in the saying, “What goes around, comes around” and the Different Strokes principle is found in, “It all depends upon your point of view”. The ...

By Wendy Langhans Many years ago, I made the mistake of sleep-walking through my introductory botany class.  But every now and then, my youthful indiscretion catches up with me.  Like earlier this week, when a friend ended her e-mail with a bit of botanical “cheesecake” humor: “Check out those glandular trichomes!”I cringed sheeplishly, because I had no idea what “trichomes” ...

By Wendy Langhans If you somehow acquired x-ray vision and could see through my mud-caked hiking boots, you’d find ten toenails gleaming with vivid red nail polish, a leftover from a wedding we recently attended. I can’t remember the exact name of the color – I think it was something like “Crimson… Cardinal… Vermilian… Carmine… Red.” But did you know ...

By Wendy Langhans Dear Readers, Thanks to a sharp-eyed reader and a knowledgeable birding friend, I learned that the bird I had initially identified as a Red-Shouldered Hawk was, in fact, a Cooper’s Hawk.  I’m not sure if it’s egg or guano on my face, but I apologize for the error.  The story has been revised to be more accurate. ...

By Wendy Langhans 1763.  It was the year that saw the end of the “French and Indian War”.  Josiah Wedgewood (grandfather of Charles Darwin) created a type of dinnerware known as “Queensware”, which is still sold today. And French botanist Michael Adanson coined the genus name for Manzanita, one of our local evergreen shrubs: “Arctostaphylos”, from the Greek words arkto ...