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,...