Wild About Nature Blog

We recently learned of a wonderful project headed by Marilu O’lyaryz. She is using her talents at film-making to bring attention to the plight of the cheetah.

Predators throughout the world have experienced more than enough prosecution. Projects like these that benefit large predators are so important. Please visit her page and learn more about what she’s doing, and if you can contribute even a single dollar, it will be greatly appreciated! You can also visit her blog to learn more. We’re so inspired when people dedicate their energies to helping nature!

We’ll leave you with a beautiful photo from her website —

These great cats have a powerful ally in Marilu O'lyaryz and her team.

Posted on February 10th, 2012 by Kenton and Rebecca
Filed under: Networking for Nature | 13 Comments »

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart. – Helen Keller

I vividly remember when I learned that my grandfather was becoming blind.  Macular degeneration had destroyed all but his peripheral vision, and in order to see me when we spoke, he looked away from me.  It was an eerie experience for a young boy.  As his vision disappeared, his precious wood-carving tools began to gather dust in the basement, and his well-loved books sat silent on their shelves.

But my grandfather never seemed upset as his vision faded.  I’d sit next to him in the living room, gazing out the huge picture window, and he’d say, “Here come the chickadees.”  The first time he did this I felt a little embarrassed for him, because the feeders were empty except for a pair of cardinals.  But a moment later, as if my grandfather were some mystic seer, his predication came true and the chickadees flickered down out of the sky.

He could predict which birds would come to the feeders with uncanny accuracy.  He wasn’t psychic, of course.  Rather, he was hearing birds perched in trees across the yard as they discussed how they’d approach the feeders.  But the sounds that were so clear to his ears seemed inaudible to me.  The loss of his sight had helped him pay more attention to his other sensory impressions – impressions that I ignored because I relied so heavily on sight.

I had forgotten the lessons of my grandfather’s blindness until my wife and I stepped outside the other day and were confronted with a remarkable cacophony. It was the busy chirping of a horde of goldfinches that had just come to the feeders.

As we stood there enfolded by an almost deafening symphony, I closed my eyes and suddenly remembered my grandfather’s ability to predict the coming of the birds.  It made me wonder how much of the world passes us by, lost because our senses have grown complacent.  As writers, Rebecca and I often spend much of our day in front of a computer, with a bright glare in our eyes and the computer’s hum in our ears.  Often it’s not until we step outside that our senses begin to wake up, and if we sit outside long enough, the world begins to come to life.  Birdsong and wind’s caress, dripping icicles and billowing clouds, a hawk spreading its feathers into the rising air of a thermal.  These are hints of the bounty available to our senses when we take the time to step out into nature.

As Rebecca and I went back inside to sit down to our computers, I silently thanked my grandfather.  He had turned his blindness into a gift, inspiring a young boy to realize that the world is bigger and more mysterious than we usually think.  Nature is uniquely qualified to compliment his teachings- next time I go for a walk, I think I’ll take a bit more time to pay attention to the sounds, smells, visions, and sensations around me.

As Helen Keller suggested, the gifts of our senses can lead us to beautiful discoveries.  For me, the sound of the goldfinches led me back to a memory of my grandfather, and his lessons bring me full circle to nature, where I discover what it really means to see, even when my eyes are closed.

Posted on January 27th, 2011 by Kenton and Rebecca
Filed under: Nature Inspiration | 12 Comments »

The other day I brought a shelf fungus home.  I found it on an old fallen tree that the neighbor was cutting up for firewood.  This particular species, Ganoderma applanatum, or the Artists’s Fungus, is as hard as wood, and gets its name because the white spore surface on the bottom can be used as a canvas by artists.  My thought was that we could affix it to the wall in our living room and use it as its name implied – as a shelf.  Rebecca told me she’d have to think about it for a short while, assuring me I’d have an answer before the next millennium.

The funny thing is that nature is full of these sorts of things – objects that mimic much of our modern technology.  Or perhaps it’s more apt to suggest that our modern technology has taken many of its cues from examples found in nature.

Sometimes these examples are fairly simple.  Last winter, when Rebecca and I were out for a walk and my jacket suffered a zipper malfunction, she walked over to a stalk of burdock, grabbed some burs, and used them to close my jacket against the wind.  It was a Swiss gentleman, George de Mestral, who used the hooked design of the burdock bur to invent Velcro.

When I lead people on wilderness survival classes, they are often surprised to find that many modern conveniences are readily available in the woods.  We sip tea from straws made of reed, sleep on heated floors by burying hot stones in the ground beneath our blankets, and even enjoy fresh running water – straight from a spring.

When bow and turkey hunters venture out into the woods, they’re using tactics our ancestors learned from watching animals – namely the benefits of camouflage, which is the basis behind a leopard’s spots, a rabbit’s soft coloration, and the uncanny mimicry of many insects.  Even highly-advanced technology benefits from observing nature’s ingenuity.  The fluorescent wings of the African Swallowtail butterfly are giving researchers insight into creating more efficient LED lighting, and by studying the super-efficient flight of flies, scientists are creating micro-robotic replicas that could be used for surveillance.  Some futurists even suggest that the human species, with its growing interconnection via modern communication, is evolving into a unified network like a hive of bees.

As for me, I decided the next millennium was quite a way off, so when Rebecca wasn’t looking, I put up the applanatum shelf and set a few knick-knacks on it.  And to my relief, when she saw it, she liked it.

Posted on December 12th, 2010 by Kenton Whitman
Filed under: Natural Phenomena | 16 Comments »

We’ve always admired Cedar Waxwings for their airbrushed beauty. Watching them in their congregations, however, we’ve always been curious about the mystery of their name — a name that references the tiny red bits of ‘wax’ that are perched on the tips of some of their flight feathers.

This is a mystery we’ve only been able to wonder about from afar, trying in vain to look through binoculars to see what those red tips really are. Then, the other day, an unbelievable treasure crossed our paths. There before us was a feather — a feather with a red, ‘wax’ tip.

Taking it inside, we examined it excitedly. The ‘wax’ wasn’t waxy at all — instead, it is smooth and shiny, like the feather’s shaft. The back is lighter colored and concave.

Even more perplexed, we searched the internet, only to find that no one really knows why these birds are graced with this special addition to their feathers. It seems to have something to do with age and mating, but it’s curious that the waxwing family alone has developed this trait, while most other birds (at least in our area) accomplish the same thing with bright colors, fabulous dances, and beautiful song.

Another of nature’s fabulous mysteries. Now that we’ve finally gotten close to an actual feather, it’s even more mysterious!

Posted on July 18th, 2010 by Kenton and Rebecca
Filed under: Birds | 10 Comments »

My mother, over to visit for the annual morel hunt, spotted this tiny creature crawling out of a morel and across the table. We had it halfway outside before we decided that we simply had to get the camera. This creature is COOL!

Haven’t been able to ID it. Perhaps it is a ‘dwarf spider’ — Erigoninae.  But it’s difficult to concentrate on a name when something looks this awesome. Can you tell we’re infatuated? Another case of taking a closer look and being amazed at what we see. Dang, this is a cool world we live in!

Posted on May 8th, 2010 by Kenton and Rebecca
Filed under: Bugs and Crawlies! | 15 Comments »