A handful of years ago, while enjoying solitude sitting outdoors, I heard a noise I hadn’t heard before. It was a subtle, paced, repetitious sound that was like clicking or grinding. I wondered if the metronomic culprit might be a cricket or tree frog. Always wanting to get a good picture to supplement this column or one of my daily #Nature365 posts on social media I snuck up on it. Expecting to see some sort of crawling creature on a log I was startled to discover that the noise was instead coming from inside of the log – which, by the way, wasn’t hollow. I couldn’t wrap my head around what I just experienced. What could have made that noise? A week or two later I had my “eureka!” moment when, in that same area, I saw a white-spotted pine sawyer. It was then I realized the noise I heard was the larva of the species. The babies are what give this beetle its name as the sound of them chewing wood is reminiscent of a small saw. The fact that the larva’s jaws – and just one larva,...

Western New York sky watchers have had a relatively eventless 2026 – a brief lunar eclipse that was at its best just before sunrise, no comets that were visible to the naked eye, and, as compared to recent years, a tameness to the northern lights. The annual Perseids meteor shower will more than make up for all of that. That shower, which has already started but peaks this year on the overnight of August 12 to 13, is usually the most prolific of such shows every year, regularly producing an amazing 60 to 100 shooting stars, of various intensities, each hour around the peak. This year, the peak coincides with a new moon (which means no moon), giving skywatchers the best viewing opportunity since 2021. Over the past four years, the moon phases around the peak, including full moons on two years, have obscured the show, masking most of the shooting stars.   The shower peaks in a few weeks, but you will see a higher-than-normal volume of meteors from now until then. After that, we’ll ha...

  One of the more abundant wildflowers of the summer and fall, Queen Anne’s Lace, is starting to bloom now. Everyone has seen this plant -- it is ubiquitous, as impressive stands of the white flowers can be found on roadsides, along rail lines, in pastures, or in hedgerows. If you look closely, you will see that what you thought was a large white, circular flower is really an umbel, or a collection of dozens, even hundreds, of small flowers coming from a single stem. Collectively, they make for a lace-like appearance (hence the name) which I’ve always thought was best compared to a doily. Some of them, but not all, will have a lone purple flower near the center of the umbel. No one knows why that loner exists – some botanists blame a genetic flaw, while others say that it makes insects assume that there is a bug on the umbel, which attracts predatory wasps and the like to the plant, which become incidental pollinators. The myth behind that purple random flower is that Queen Anne,...

  Over the past 15 years or so, milkweed gardens have been the “in” thing for gardeners and nature lovers. I appreciate every one of you who have undertaken the task of growing these plants to help the beleaguered monarch regain its status as the king of our butterflies. Since the 1990s, the population of migrating monarchs has declined by 80%. Your efforts have helped to slow down that loss and, in some years, led to significant, albeit it periodic and temporary, rebounds. Keep plugging along – this war will be won via a resilient and patient group effort. While tending to your butterfly garden, stop and smell the roses -- well, smell the milkweed. Those flowers are powerful in their scent, it’s such a beautiful aroma, reminiscent of lilac. Upon smelling it, it becomes obvious why so many pollinators and other insects love the flowers. Those are the creatures I want you to appreciate. Monarch butterflies get all the love and attention, and deservedly so, but peer into the flower...