Calpurnia Tate is the child all naturalists wish they were as children: endlessly curious, possessing of boundless energy, and most important of all, beginning their explorations of the natural world at an age when the mind has not yet been conditioned to repress questions because they might seem silly or pointless to others.
Regardless of where your travels might take you in this world (and if Sir Richard Branson is successful in his venture, any other) it’s always a good idea to read-up on your destination before you go. For travelling naturalists and wildlife photographers, such preliminary study is not just a good idea, it’s of paramount importance. [...]
From their spectacularly colorful wings that can be maddeningly difficult to get into proper focus to their flighty feeding habits that cause them to move to another flower a split second before the shutter release button is depressed, butterfly photography can test photographic skills in ways few other nature subjects can.
When it comes to the stuff of which nightmares are commonly made, it’s difficult to find a more commonly employed foundation material than the creatures contained in the Phylum Arthropoda, particularly those included in the Classes Insecta and Arachnida; in common parlance – insects and spiders. Different from us in so many ways – number [...]
To borrow a well-used old phrase and write that Edward O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Research Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, “wrote the book” on ants is neither to exaggerate nor employ a metaphor; it was written in scholastic partnership with his long-time scientific collaborator Bert Hölldobler, titled The Ants, and published in 1990. In 1991 [...]
