natureswondersbyclyde

      As I sit here eating tomato slices from tomatoes our good neighbors gave us from their garden, I reflect on the beauties, nutrition and history of tomatoes.  I saw the many yellow flowers on the tomato plants that produced the deep-orange fruits I am eating.  I saw the little, green knobs that grew from the fertilized blooms grow bigger and bigger, turning yellow, then a beautiful orange as they grew.        I saw the tomato plants basking in sunlight and showering in rainfall.  Chlorophyll in the green leaves of tomato plants traps sunlight and puts it to work to combine hydrogen from rainwater drawn from the ground by the plants' roots and stems, and carbon dioxide from the air to form sugar that feeds the growth of the plants and ripening tomatoes.  Animals and people use oxygen green plants expel as a waste product, and animals and people exhale carbon dioxide, which green plants take in to help produce sugar for thei...

      One hour a week, from mid-September to almost mid-October, 2026, I patrolled a half-mile stretch of rural roadside in a deciduous, bottomland woods in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania to enjoy nature.  The vegetation on both sides of the road is mowed at least once a year, about ten feet back from the road to the woodland edges, making the beautiful, vivid colors of autumn leaves, berries and late-blooming flowers along those wooded borders quite visible from the road.       Colored foliage dominates deciduous woods during the latter part of October, locally.  But some bottomland trees' foliage turns colors before that time, including many strikingly-red leaves on red maples and black gums, and soft yellow on black walnuts.  I see those lovely leaves peeking out beautifully along that half-mile section of woodland edges I visit weekly from the country road.           The strikingly-red berries of spicebu...

      When I was a boy living in farmland in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, I was familiar with barn swallows nesting in open-topped, mud-pellet cradles they built themselves on the sides of support beams in a barn.  And when I entered the barn, parent swallows would dive at me and call harshly to drive me away from their eggs or young in those nurseries.           Swallows have always fascinated me.  Their swift, swooping flight is entertaining. I have seen six different kinds in the eastern United States over the years, including barn swallows, cliff swallows, bank swallows, rough-winged swallows, purple martins and tree swallows.  And, having diverged from a common ancestor, all swallows, world-wide, have traits in common with each other, including those species in the eastern United States.  They are all built much alike, with streamlined bodies, long, narrow wings and small beaks, with large gapes for ensnaring flyin...

      The species of two families of North American breeding birds, five kinds of flycatchers, that are nearly identical, and four of spot-breasted thrushes, that look much alike, are examples of species diversion from a common ancestor.  Each species of each family still resembles its close relatives, even after an apparent, long time lapse.  Each kind of bird in both families diverged from its ancestor and adapted to a different habitat to take advantage of new food and shelter sources, different than that of their close relatives.  That diverging from a common ancestor reduces competition for food and cover among those cousins, and creates new species.        Willow, alder, least, Acadian and yellow-bellied flycatchers of the Empidonax genus demonstrate quite well their diversion from a common ancestor.  All five of these species are plain brown for the most part, and have eye rings and wing bars.  They all are plain to...

      Every year, after the spring migration and raising young in summer, by August through September, flocks of several kinds of water-loving, post-breeding birds rest and feed on the mudflats and in shallows of Lake Onalaska, a backwater off the Mississippi River in Wisconsin.  Those flats and shallows often are nearly covered with busy water birds that I am excited to see through a live camera and our computer screen as they go about their business of recovering from rearing offspring, and preparing for winter.      Flocks of stately American white pelicans, double-crested cormorants, ring-billed gulls and caspian terns rest on the flats and catch fish in the shallows, each species in its unique way, which is intriguing to see.  Groups of pelicans work together on the water's surface to herd small fish against a flat where the pelicans all repeatedly dip their large, pouched beaks into the water to scoop up fish.  Individual cormorants div...

      Five kinds of common, flowering plants, including Canada goldenrod, white asters, Jerusalem artichokes, morning glories and smartweeds bloom beautifully along certain rural roadsides in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland during September into October.  And their lovely blossoms are as attractive as any blooms in flower gardens, and free to see.        Perennial, native goldenrods usually are the first to bloom abundantly along many country roads in early September.  Each goldenrod stalk bears a clump of yellow "fingers" pointing in all directions, and each "digit" is covered with tiny, golden florets.  Larger patches and strips of goldenrod are particularly striking and lovely along country roads, and in abandoned fields.       Patches of perennial, native white asters, with white flower petals and yellow flower centers, bloom attractively from mid-September into October, often with goldenrod, along ma...