Episode 245: Guttation

“Guttation” is the name for those perfect round droplets of liquid you can find on the surface of some mushrooms, and while you might quickly assume it’s just dew, it’s actually liquid exuded from within the mushroom.

Episode 244: Milkweed Seeds

It is this time of year when you can seek out a wild milkweed patch and keep an eye on it if you want to collect some seeds to plant your own native butterfly garden next spring.

Episode 243: Milk Snakes

The beautiful patterning on a milk snake makes some people confuse them for timber rattlers or copperheads, but they are a much more mellow species that may begin following small mammals indoors soon.

Episode 242: Red-bellied Snakes

Red-bellied snakes most often breed in the spring or early summer, though will evidently occasionally breed in the late fall. Somewhat uniquely among reptiles, the females give birth to litters of 1-21 live young between late July and early September.

Episode 241: Arrowhead Flowering

As the purple pickerelweed flowers fade along pond and river edges, you can seek spikes of scarlet red cardinal flowers in the same areas and the white, three-petaled flowers of arrowhead.

Episode 240: Pearly Everlasting Blooming

This herbaceous wildflower can grow in clumps up to about three feet tall. Its most distinguishing characteristic is their white, papery flowers that are relatively small compared to the height of the plant.

Episode 239: Hermit Thrushes on Nests

Hermit thrushes in the east are ground-nesting birds who tend to make their nests under shrubs or in a dense thicket. You might find a nest in a forest near you if you’re a careful observer.

Episode 238: Katydids

Watch for a large green leaf climbing across the window at night. It might just be a katydid, whose song can be heard this time of year throughout most of the state.

Episode 237: Clouds

Thunderstorms come from cumulonimbus clouds, which are the giants of the cloud world. They are the only cloud that extends through all three cloud levels.

Episode 236: Ghost Pipes

Seen a small cluster of tobacco pipe-shaped mushrooms standing six inches or so above the leafy duff of their forested homes? They are not actually mushrooms but a parasitic plant.