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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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.
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Much of what we see in the night sky was also seen by our ancient ancestors, writes Dana Wilde.
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Inspired by literary figures, fictional characters and ideals, the names of cats don't always seem to fit but have peculiar ways of working out, Dana Wilde writes.
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Mojo's legacy lives in on from her teaching our other felines to avoid the road, writes Dana Wilde.
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How felines came to live among us is an interesting story, Dana Wilde writes.
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Native American names for seasonal moon cycles carry more resonance than our months, which are a human-made illusion, Dana Wilde writes.
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Years pass like seasons, piling up gradually like waves on a beach until it's high tide, writes Dana Wilde.
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For the sake of your own backyard, maybe you want to vote in the next election, Dana Wilde writes.
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Spiders are having experiences we can probably never understand, the same way we're having experiences they can never understand, writes Dana Wilde
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There's no way autumn's natural beauty is random, writes Dana Wilde.
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Nowadays we cherish the clear autumn chill and the color in the trees, but it wasn't always the case, writes Dana Wilde.
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Exploring is an essential component of the health of human beings, writes Dana Wilde.
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