Essays
All essays
Recent writing on gardens, wildlife, books and memory.
Phosphatemia—How Green is your Water?
June 11, 2021
Phosphate is added to municipal drinking water to avoid lead
Bear Facts About Hunting
June 4, 2021
Hounds are set loose in the West Virginia forests to train before hunting season by chasing black bears to a tree where they take refuge
Great Egret
June 1, 2021
Last week Great Blues and now great whites, colonial nesters in the same locality. The Great Egret is a summer resident that catches the eye in flight, its extraordinary long neck folded behind a dagger beak and legs stream behind.
Cicada with a 17-year Itch
May 28, 2021
‘Have your cicada’s broken ground yet?’ I need to tell people that our last big bug year was 2013. Brood X is now emerging in north-eastern and mid-western states but the nearest to us in Tidewater is northern Virginia. Frustrated
Great Blue Heron
May 25, 2021
Normally solitary, I see Great Blues poised on the banks of saltmarsh, staring into the creek at a respectful distance from the next neighbor. Occasionally one lands by our pool, as statuesque as the artificial kind sold as pool decoration.