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Words, words, words
I’m a writer and a scientist. For both these jobs, I think a lot about words. Nothing brings me more joy than finding just the right word to describe what I find in nature. Further, nothing gives me more anxiety than seeing how sloppily we throw around terms and phrases in science. I worry that…
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Yellow jackets (Vespula maculifrons)
I am the official Bug Wrangler for our household. It’s a pretty great gig. I help my friends feel more at ease in our home, I interact with cool arthropods, and I save innocent creatures from a cruel and unusual demise by slipper. A real win-win-win. Now that we’re all stuck home in springtime, business…
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Nature Diary 5: Turkey vultures (Cathartes aura)
Daily observation and daily writing are my goals, and I’m pleasantly surprised how well I’m able to stay with them. They are rules I’ll try to carry with me beyond this exceptional era. However daily sharing may not be reasonable. Polish takes time, which I have in spades, and energy, which I can’t always muster.…
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Daily Nature Diary 4: onion shoots (Allium cepa)
This will be a short entry because today was a full day. It was also a rainy day, so I didn’t get out to explore other than to make a morning run to the grocery store. It was eerily quiet. Everyone tried to stay six feet apart, but we still smiled at one another as…
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Daily Nature Diary 3: Birdsong
My friend Mollie asks: “why do birds that hang out near water have ‘uglier’ calls than the birds we like to watch congregating in our trees?” Mollie lives in downtown Chicago, just a few blocks away from Lake Michigan. To break up the days stuck inside, she’s been running on the beach and watching the…
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Daily Nature Diary 2: Groundhogs (Marmota monax)
On the surface, today is an ordinary Saturday. I didn’t set my alarm, but still got up before sunrise. I had my breakfast, then sipped my customary earl grey tea at my desk while I listened to NPR’s Weekend Edition. I did some computer work. I read while I ate lunch: my weekend treat of…
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Daily Nature Diary 1: Daffodils (Narcissus pseudonarcissus)
There are 397 daffodils in our yard. 401 if I include the four my housemate Caroline and I snipped off for the jar on our kitchen table. We had no idea that such a happy host of yellow would pop up along the fence of our neighborhood rental home. They all opened in the last…
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Introducing Daily Nature Diary: a challenge to enjoy being an animal
It’s an uncanny time to be an evolutionary biologist. Because I’m versed in the literature and the lexicon, I can mostly follow the epidemiological science in the news and separate fact from fiction. That’s a huge help with the incessant and ever-shifting barrage of confusing, conflicting, and sometimes just plain unscientific information surrounding the COVID-19…
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Phidippus audax
The little black jumping spider tickles its way up my forearm. I turn my head to get a better look as it climbs over the knob of my elbow. It stops, sticks its two front legs up in the air, and stares at me. At least I think it does. With all those glittery eyes…
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Tide Pooling
We gather for the American Society of Naturalists meetings at Asilomar State Beach to argue about life. We share our most specialized natural history discoveries and our broadest theories about the nature of evolution. We debate the scale and strength of adaptation, sketch out complex feedback loops connecting ecological and evolutionary processes, and weigh the…
Sarah Jean McPeek
Community and behavioral ecologist. I speak for the beetles.
Sarah Jean McPeek 