The Nature of Phenology | WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark Look for an orange, chunky, irregularly-shaped mushroom with a rough, dry texture. When sliced, the interior is white. This combination of being irregularly-shaped with a white interior and unique rough exterior are clues about the weirdness of this particular fungus. Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more avail...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark Jewelweed shimmers like the finest polished silver but flags in the water’s dark current like the softest silk. What is this thing that is both a jewel and a weed? What kind of mad trickery is this? Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com. Hazel Stark lives in Gould...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark For being fairly common visitors to harbors, bays, and fjords throughout their global temperate range, harbor porpoises are still rather a mystery to us. We know that during the summer months they stay in protected coastal waters as they hunt migrating schools of pogies, mackerel, squid, and pollock, among other fish. In the winter months, w...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark Like all orchids, the rose pogonia is a monocot and, being such, the flower is arranged along a rule of three: three sepals, which protect the developing flower while a bud and add to the display when it is in full bloom, and three petals. Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology....

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark If you’re one who strives to eradicate invasive plants in your backyard, valerian has some uses that might make you feel even better about ripping them out of the ground. Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com. Hazel Stark lives in Gouldsboro, is Co-Founder and Nat...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark Most adults I talk to about lightning bugs these days mention remembering many more of them when they were children, and it may be true that their populations have been decreasing. Pesticide use, habitat destruction, and light pollution all limit their range. But there are so many easy ways to increase lightning bug habitat in your own yard....

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark One fiddlehead that is easy to overlook due to its penchant for breaking the fiddlehead dress code is bracken fern, but this common fern is impossible to overlook now as its large leaves have freshly unfurled and it is taking up a lot of space. Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofpheno...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark Tough Labrador tea shrubs are blooming in challenging places with thin, nutrient-poor soils. Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com About the producers and host: Joe Horn lives in Gouldsboro, is Co-Founder of Maine Outdoor School, L3C, and is a Registered Maine Gui...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark Buttercups are familiar to most people with their distinctive shiny five petals. That flashy luster helps reflect sunlight to warm up the reproductive parts of the flower which are held above the yellow petals. Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com. About the prod...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark The alder leaf beetle can be found on alder shrubs now, though it is a surprise to me that no one calls this a “sapphire alder beetle” given their flashy color. Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com. About the producers and host: Joe Horn lives in Gouldsboro, is C...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark Now is the time to sniff out your local wild cherry thicket so you know where to return once the fruits are ready this summer. Look for the long clusters of cherry flowers, a harbinger of a good jelly-making season to come. Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com. A...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark Goldthread is a diminutive member of the buttercup family that is primarily at home in moist, mossy woodlands. The star-shaped flowers of goldthread emerge from a single stem held slightly above the leaves. Each flower displays five to seven pure white petals encircling a clump of yellow stamens. Photos, a full transcript, references, contac...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark Even now as deciduous leaves are developing by the day, beginning as a pale spring green, I still find myself drawn to the deep greens that so many mosses provide. To understand mosses, it is important to understand the difference between vascular and non-vascular plants. Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more a...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark There is one overlooked flower that announces the estimated arrival date of the first rubies of summer: the wild strawberry. Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com About the producers and host: Joe Horn lives in Gouldsboro, is Co-Founder of Maine Outdoor School, L3...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark May 1st marks the halfway point between the spring equinox and the summer solstice on a day known to many as Beltane. Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com. The post The Nature of Phenology 5/1/21: Beltane first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark Violets are beginning to bloom now. These delightful wild edibles trick ants into doing their bidding. Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com. The post The Nature of Phenology 4/24/21: Violets first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Af...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark Dandelions, those yellow-flowered asters of lawn, field, and garden that turn into irresistible round seedheads aching to be blown into the wind, offer us some of the first nutritious spring greens. But to find them, you have to get moving outdoors and tuned into the seasonal signs that tell you when and where to find them. Photos, a full tr...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark Eagles and ospreys seem equally at home hunting in both salt and freshwater, but there is also one bird, notably smaller though on par with those notorious piscivores in their fish-catching ability, that is now returning to the area after a winter farther south: the belted kingfisher. Photos, a full transcript, references, contact informatio...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark The start of April is the start of angling in rivers and streams in Maine and is also the start of the spawning run for one under-loved, large, native, and hard fighting “rough fish:” the white sucker. Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com. The post The Nature of...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark Turkey vultures are one of the many essential workers of our ecosystems. They help manage waste and reduce the spread of disease through their rather gruesome efforts and they are returning to Maine now after a winter spent farther south. Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.w...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark Riverside-dwelling silver maples flower in early spring, an important adaptation for this riparian tree. Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com. The post The Nature of Phenology 3/20/21: Silver Maples first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and P...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark Fishers are large members of the weasel family, Mustelidae, and they are giving birth to tiny helpless young now. Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com. The post The Nature of Phenology 3/13/21: Fishers first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News an...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark While the winter world is one of few active bugs, it certainly isn’t completely devoid of them, and I am always charmed when I see the occasional spider, snow fly, or stonefly creeping across the snow. But I have perhaps never been more surprised than last winter when I found a plump, sausagey-looking caterpillar making tracks after a fresh...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark Many of our local songbirds will begin their pre-breeding activity in only a few short weeks, so now is a prime moment to clean out those old nest boxes or make some new ones. Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com The post The Nature of Phenology 2/27/21: Nest Box...

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark Tree and shrub buds are truly incredible things. In the late summer and through the fall, while our eyes may be transfixed by the phenomenal shades of reds, oranges, and yellows that make that time of the year iconic in New England, there is an equally magical display happening in miniature. Now, you can unleash some of that magic indoors. P...