Dana Wilde lives in Troy. His writings on Maine’s natural world are collected in “The Other End of the Driveway,” available from online booksellers or by contacting the author at [email protected]. Backyard Naturalist appears the second and fourth Thursdays each month.
Latest columns
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Of Farmington resident Phil Poirier's thoughtful camping stories, the story about a Canadian expedition was one to share with readers, writes Dana Wilde.
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This being Thanksgiving time, I’ve been thinking about my family, writes Dana Wilde.
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While the U.S. slashes its protection policies, our environment burns, writes Dana Wilde.
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Right at the end of October, when the woods and fields look this bare and lifeless, the ancient Celts saw the end of the year, writes Dana Wilde.
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Scientists are confident that something on the order of disastrous is going on with life on Earth, the full extent and implications not yet clear, writes Dana Wilde.
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Although nearly 10% of other hummingbird species worldwide are threatened with extinction, ruby-throats are not, writes Dana Wilde.
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If there are steps you can take to cut back wood and oil burning at your house, writes Dana Wilde, you need to take them.
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Water hemlock looks to the unpracticed eye just like Queen Anne’s lace. One big difference though: It can be fatal to ingest, writes Dana Wilde.
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Climate change cannot be stopped now, but its effects can be mitigated, writes Dana Wilde.
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This summer has had an inexplicable phenomenon of early and late summer colliding, writes Dana Wilde.
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As humans tear up woods for development, salamanders and most amphibians are suffering severely from habitat loss and fragmentation, writes Dana Wilde.
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With the 50th anniversary of the landing next week, it seems like the future is all in the past, writes Dana Wilde.
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A close look at how spiders defecate reveals how they go out of their way to keep their surroundings clean, Dana Wilde writes.
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I was walking around this park before it was a park, writes Dana Wilde.
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While the tornadoes get bigger and the wildfires burn, the politicians fiddle for money, writes Dana Wilde.
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The earliest horseshoe crab fossil is about 445 million years old, which means they scuttled across the floors of Earth’s silent seas roughly 350 million years before any flower blossomed, writes Dana Wilde.
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Perennially, Dana Wilde writes, questions abound about what our feathered friends are saying as their songs fill woods.
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There are echoes of a whole other world inside the woods, writes Dana Wilde.
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One feline seems to be collecting on past good deeds, while another could be building up a balance to pay off later, Dana Wilde writes.
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Even though the snow-filled woods seem relatively calm and normal this winter, big global climate problems are amassing that need attention, Dana Wilde writes.