While my musings about nature generally focus on southeastern Canada and the northeastern United States, there are times when a subject is far too juicy to ignore even if it’s out of this world, like Japanese satellites made from trees. Back home on our little planet, we have a blind, rainbow-hued marine worm which slices fish in half for the joy of it.
This “Bobbitt” worm grows to ten feet long and can paralyze a human with its venom. Also cool but way less terrifying, a rainforest tree on the island of New Caledonia oozes more nickel than the richest mines are able to yield. [Read more…] about Acorn Woodpeckers: Adorable Acorn Adorners
One morning early, as I slept in our mountain cabin Mateskared, a woodpecker landed on the cabin’s wood siding. Its profound rapid-fire pecking jerked me out of sound sleep.
In the first global test of the idea, scientists have found evidence that some woodpeckers can evolve to look like another species of woodpecker in the same neighborhood. The researchers say that this “plumage mimicry” isn’t a fluke – it happens among pairs of distantly related woodpeckers all over the world. 
“That’s a downy. No wait, it’s a hairy – definitely a hairy. Well, hang on…maybe it is a downy.” I admit it: I’ve had this happen to me more than once. 
A woodpecker frequently visits our feeder, alighting on the wooden supporting post and hopping up the post to the suet. Its medium size and striking markings – black wings spotted with white, a large white patch on the back, and a red spot on the back of the head – identify the bird as a male hairy woodpecker. The female, which also comes to our feeder, lacks the red patch on the head.