If human assumption is correct, one of the birds that blesses our lives (but seen here only infrequently) is totally unaware that its name and one of its primary personality traits were immortalized in the 1960 Pulitzer prize-winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, and in a critically-acclaimed 1962 film of the same name.

Among college students who elect to major in some aspect of the biological world, those who choose one of the fields within plant biology constitute a much smaller bunch than those who elect to study some topic within the field of animal biology. There are several reasons for this imbalance.

Saturday, 19 March, the day before the first day of spring, seemed a good time to check the progress on campus of Spring emerging from Winter—and to see how may signs of Spring were about. I was not disappointed. For starters, I enjoyed two butterflies and one small spider. No dragon flies yet.

Mother Earth by Nathan Bolls

I recently received from a friend and was intrigued by “12 Truths I Learned from Life and Writing” by syndicated columnist, Anne Lamott. A sample follows:

The loud, thumping trill from the woods booms against our ears. I’m reminded of James Thurber’s “things that go bump in the night.” What Phantom of the Forest with such auditory might lurks therein and calls from the night? Or... “what rough beast...slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?” (W.B. Yeats poem “The Second Coming”) Numerous societies across our world speak of a mysterious local monster, but the existence of none, as of yet, has been proven. We hear most often of the Himalayan Yeti, the north American Sasquatch (Bigfoot), or of Scotland’s Loch Ness Monster.  

A big topic during our recent “National Climate Week,” was that of “ecological literacy.” The current ecological crisis suggests the necessity for a steep ecological learning curve for all of our world societies, but especially for those of the “industrial belt” that circles the globe north of the equator. This area uses natural resources and produces trash and pollutants at levels that are disproportionate to its percentage of the world’s population.

These days a great fury is filling the air waves between plants and many of the animals of our world. Ease yourself across the prairie and within its tree- and shrub-filled gullies and patches. Stroll the woods; watch the trees, shrubs, and flowers around your home; or the plants in your gardens. Even with watching closely, you’ll sense very little of the fury, very few of the trillions of small, quiet acts of which I speak.

   Today is the 75th anniversary of D-Day: the huge, costly, and ultimately successful allied land assault on Hitler’s Fortress Europe. Although mere words never can even remotely capture what happened that fateful day on Omaha Beach, I want to share a powerful experience that Imogene and I once had there.

   Lots of people like the smorgasbord fashion of dining, at least occasionally.  But another smorgasbord exists, and it’s all around us 24/7/365 & 1/4th.  The menu varies with the season, but it occurs throughout our campus as well as our rural hills and valleys.  Wild animals dine, without reservations, both night and day, and on an endless variety of goodies, depending upon the species—and time of year.

We soon will lose our summer umbrella of living shingles: the marvelous evolutionary development we call the green plant leaf. In addition to the leafs' essential process of photosynthesis, they offer shade to plants, animals, and soils in thousands of different ways.

   But leaves, even on conifer trees, are temporary structures. For deciduous trees, we celebrate this ephemerality by looking forward to the change in leaf colors—our palette of fall--knowing full well that color change is related to leaf drop and death.