Pamelia took this photo of a king penguin chick and adult at South Georgia in the Antarctic.

A Thanksgiving Wish

November 26, 2015

While traveling home last week from the pristine, wildlife-rich Antarctic (where less than a century ago some whales were hunted to near-extinction, and climate change now threatens a delicate web of ice and life), Pamelia and I unexpectedly found printed in our U.S. passports this timely quotation from the Mohawk version of the Thanksgiving Address: "We send thanks to all the Animal life in the world. They have many things to teach us as people. We are glad they are still here and we hope it will always be so."

A positive thought to consider this Thanksgiving Day: We humans (species name Homo sapiens, meaning—no irony intended—"wise person") have unlimited potential to learn more from and about our fellow animals (each of which has an extraordinary story and life, but no voice in human decision-making) and to work together to protect their future and habitat as well as ours.

Happy Thanksgiving to all! —Craig Neff and Pamelia Markwood

The woodchuck came out this week after months in hibernation—and wasn't the only animal on the move.

'Chuckie's Back

March 31, 2013

What kind of warbler was it? Pamelia and I kept changing our angle, trying for a better look at the tiny bird in the roadside tree. There—some yellow on the wings! A whitish belly...and oops, he flitted to another hard-to-see shaded branch. It's the start of spring, and our forest bird-watching skills are rusty. Yellow-rumped warbler? We've seem several of them in this spot before. That's what I'll call it, but not with any confidence.

Are you seeing as many signs of spring as we are here in Maine? Two-thirds of our winter flock of 180 mallard and American black ducks headed north this week. I heard some geese honking over the bay, and more eiders than usual. The green tips of daffodils are just poking up. And the woodchuck has returned.

He—or she—roamed the lawn, the garden beds and under the bird feeders, sniffing and nibbling.

Most people see woodchucks as pests. Or weather forecasters. Woodchucks are also known as groundhogs, though ours never appears in time for the shadow-watching ritual early every February. We see our woodchuck—there's always just one here, consistent with the species' loner reputation—as simply another local resident, as much entitled to be here as we are. We put some fencing up around the gardens each spring to encourage him to dine on plants other than our flowers, and he tends to head elsewhere for most of the summer.

He—or she—showed pretty good speed in almost bounding down granite stairs toward the water. I'd probably feel frisky too after spending months in a dormant state in a hole in the ground.

Woodchucks are genuine hibernators. After fattening themselves up, they snuggle into burrows well underground in late fall. When they emerge in the spring, as was obvious from our woodchuck, they're relatively skinny. Ours nibbled on birdseed and whatever hint of greenery he could find...meaning he's still probably quite hungry.

The origin of the name woodchuck, if you're wondering, has nothing to do with the old rhyme about how much wood one could chuck. It's a mispronunciation of wuchak or otchek, two Native American names for them.

Let me know—or send me photos—of the spring sights you've been seeing.

Sea Ice Fracturing Just North of Alaska The one-minute time-lapse satellite video below was just released by NASA. The Beaufort Sea is north of Alaska. Because of climate change, a larger expanse of its ice is melting and/or breaking off each year. The ice fracturing in the video looks like like kinetic art.

Answer to the Last Puzzler I'll let this photo, which we took at the Natural History Museum in London, tell the story:

We took this photo at the Museum of Natural History in London.

Today's Puzzler Today is the birthday of French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes, who was born in 1595 and (among other achievements) was the father of analytical geometry and a key figure in the scientific revolution. Which of these famous quotations is NOT attributed to him:

a) "It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well." b) "I think; therefore I am." c) "An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?" d) "The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries. e) "I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am."

A recent view from home toward Alley Island (left) and Mount Desert Island (somewhere in the clouds and sea smoke). Because we’re north of the Equator and our half of the Earth is tilted away from the Sun, sunrise is now much farther south on our ho… — A recent view from home toward Alley Island (left) and Mount Desert Island (somewhere in the clouds and sea smoke). Because we’re north of the Equator and our half of the Earth is tilted away from the Sun, sunrise is now much farther south on our horizon—almost due southeast, according to my compass. In this darkest month our local star cuts a low, short arc across the Maine sky and sets before 4 p.m. Our wild turkeys are roosting in the trees by then, with 15 long hours to wait before the next sunrise.

Sunlight in the Darkest Month

December 11, 2012

I used to travel a lot: more than 250 days and 100,000 miles year in my busiest time as a Sports Illustrated writer. As an editor I don't fly off on assignments as much, but somehow since the start of July I've traveled 30,000 miles and been away from home more than half the time. Perhaps it's because, on top of my (and our) Olympic-related trips, Pamelia and I have been meeting with so many people who will be collaborating with us on Naturalist's Notebook projects in 2013, 2014, 2015...well, for a long time, we hope.

The two of us just completed a whirlwind Northeastern loop that took us to meetings with artists, educators, student interns, a natural-history museum preparator, a book agent, a playwright, two of America's best dancers and an oral historian, among others. We stopped at Yale, in New York City, in Concord, N.H., and at one of Connecticut's most forward-thinking high schools. I think it's a good sign that everyone we met with seemed as excited about the Notebook's current and future projects as we are. As we like to say, it was a supernova trip.

The Sun is about 3 million miles closer to us now than it is in summer, which explains why it can seem so bright when you’re driving at this time of year.

We'll tell you more soon about all the projects and collaborators, but since we're showing a lot of solar photos here, I'll mention that one of our 2013 team members is astrophysicist Joe Snider, who's an expert on the Sun, among many other celestial objects. Joe spent almost three decades as a physics professor at Oberlin College in Ohio but now fixes his gaze on the starwatching-friendly skies of the Acadia National Park area. When he stops by the Notebook, he usually has one of his astronomical inventions in hand. He's constantly creating new devices to help people understand the movement of planets and stars and other basics of the cosmos.

Here the Sun begins to peek over Sargent Mountain. One of Discover magazine’s top 100 science stories of 2012 was the Sun’s Aug. 31 expulsion of a gigantic cloud of 100,000-degree plasma (ionized gas) that traveled 900 miles per second and was as lo… — Here the Sun begins to peek over Sargent Mountain. One of Discover magazine’s top 100 science stories of 2012 was the Sun’s Aug. 31 expulsion of a gigantic cloud of 100,000-degree plasma (ionized gas) that traveled 900 miles per second and was as long as 30 Earths put side by side. The magazine notes that in 2013 the Sun will be at the peak of its 11-year cycle of solar activity, so more amazing eruptions and auroras could be in store (and might bedevil satellites).

Just the other day, while demonstrating his newly invented solar calendar, Joe noted that, while people often connect sunrise and sunset times with a location's latitude (e.g., short winter days in Alaska), a location's longitude also affects the timing. For example, Maine is so far east that it's almost in the Atlantic time zone with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. (Just this summer, friends told us that when they were hiking on the eastern edge of Mount Desert Island their cell-phone clocks jumped an hour ahead.) Because we're so far east, we currently see the sun rise 43 minutes earlier than people do in Cleveland, which is also in the Eastern time zone.

Here’s a mind-boggling lunar fact to ponder while looking at this gorgeous solar-lit scene: When the Moon formed, about 4.5 billion years ago, it was just 15,000 miles from Earth—almost 95 percent closer than it is now. As a result, as noted by scie… — Here’s a mind-boggling lunar fact to ponder while looking at this gorgeous solar-lit scene: When the Moon formed, about 4.5 billion years ago, it was just 15,000 miles from Earth—almost 95 percent closer than it is now. As a result, as noted by scientist Robert Hazen in his superb book The Story of Earth, a full Moon would have looked 250 TIMES LARGER in the sky than it does now. It would have appeared 16 times greater in diameter than the Sun currently does. In a less-than-romantic twist, that full Moon would have been black, with glowing red magma-filled cracks. Imagine all THAT looming in the background of an Ansel Adams photo.

As we look ahead to a sunny 2013, keep in mind that our favorite star doesn't just shine, but also spins. The Sun rotates on its axis once every 25 days, meaning that the next time it completes the full rotation it started this morning, the new year will have dawned and the days, at least in our half of the world, will be getting longer and brighter, whether you're in Maine or in Cleveland.

Come Visit the Notebook We've decided to open the Notebook for three more days of holiday shopping and discovering: Saturday 12/15, Saturday 12/22 and Sunday 12/23. We'll be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. Stop by 16 Main St. in Seal Harbor for some warmth and fun on a cold December day.

Climate Change Many of us were dismayed to read a recent letter to the local newspaper in which the writer bizarrely claimed that most experts now agree that the planet has not been getting warmer. In response, an Orland, Maine, man named Rufus Wanning wrote a reasoned rebuttal that I can't resist quoting, at least in part: "The National Climate Data Center says that 2012 is on track to be the warmest year on record. No warming? Tell that to professor Rich Muller of Berkeley, formerly a well-known climate change skeptic. He and his team of a dozen scientists examined temperature data from past decades and centuries to test the claims of global warming scientists. In professor Muller's words: 'The average temperature of the Earth's land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases. "Professor Muller's research was funded by the Koch brothers, oil and gas billionaires well known for their support of climate denial science...They did not get what they expected. "[The original letter writer] goes on to say that CO2 does not cause global warming. Tell that to Paul Mayewski and his team at the Climate Change Institute at [the University of Maine at Orono]. Professor Mayewski has led many expeditions to Greenland and Antarctica to drill for ice cores. Ice cores have annual rings, like trees, and they trap bubbles of air, preserving samples of prehistoric atmospheres. From this data, professor Mayewski and his colleagues have shown that CO2 and temperature have moved in tandem for at least the last 400,000 years."

I keep missing the photo. I try to shoot this male cardinal and his mate camouflaged in the reddish branches of one of our leafless rugosa rose hedges. So instead I'll just show you how he chose to spend part of a recent rainy day, waiting for a gra… — I keep missing the photo. I try to shoot this male cardinal and his mate camouflaged in the reddish branches of one of our leafless rugosa rose hedges. So instead I'll just show you how he chose to spend part of a recent rainy day, waiting for a gray squirrel to get off our bird feeder.

Answer to the Last Puzzler The element that makes up almost half of the Earth's crust is oxygen. So in a sense you're always walking on air.

Today's Puzzler A trick question (sort of): Which of these statements about beavers is NOT true:

a) Beavers can close their lips while keeping their teeth exposed, enabling them to swim while carrying branches and keeping water out of their mouth. b) Beavers can hold their breath for more than 15 minutes. c) Beavers store fat in their tails. d) All of the above statements are true e) None of the above statements is true

Credit for the above Puzzler goes to ace Maine naturalist Lynn Havsall. If you would like to subscribe to Lynn's ever-fascinating newsletter, just e-mail her at infolhavsall@gmail.com.

Our motion-triggered wildlife camera continues to provide beautiful photos. I saw this red fox run across our lawn yesterday but didn’t realize that he (or she) would stop to pose for a picture.

Fox Cam, the Birds-of-Paradise Project, Election Notes and Our Holiday Schedule

November 16, 2012

Pamelia and I are back from our trip to Russia and happy to be at home in beautiful, chilly Maine. Our internal clocks are still out of whack while adjusting to the nine-hour time difference. Eli and Virginia helped keep us awake past 7 p.m. last night by challenging us to a game of Life, in which three of us became journalists—for me, a case of Life imitating life. I came home from Sochi with a full reporter's notebook as well as new ideas for The Naturalist's Notebook, which we will open for two days of holiday shopping and interacting right after Thanksgiving (see below). And now it's time to start catching up on the blog.

Given how he (or she) stared into the camera, we wondered if the fox could see the infrared motion-detection beam aimed at him.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Geographic are collaborating on a book, TV special and museum exhibit on birds of paradise, some of the most extraordinary—almost unbelievable—creatures on Earth. The special will start airing on the National Geographic Channel on Thanksgiving night, and above is a sneak preview. These birds live only on the ecologically invaluable island of New Guinea, in Asia's densest rainforest. Watch the short video above and you'll be amazed.

Notebook Holiday Schedule The Naturalist's Notebook will be open for two days of holiday shopping and interacting: Nov. 23 (otherwise know as Black Friday) and Nov. 24 (otherwise known as Small Business Saturday). We'll be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on each day and will offer 15% off on all purchases and discounts of up to 40% on several items. Come on over to Seal Harbor—you'll get a sneak peek at how we're already beginning to transform the Notebook for 2013.

What’s this? A glimpse of what’s coming to the Notebook in 2013?

How Many Seeds in the Owl? All season long, Notebook visitors guessed how many sunflower seeds there were in the large glass owl that sat on our checkout desk. The estimates ranged from 651 to 45 trillion to a googol (1 with 100 zeroes). Some people took measurements of the owl and went through elaborate calculations. Others plucked a number from the air. The most common guesses were 25,000 and 1 million.So what's the correct answer?

It is...131,487 seeds. Virginia painstakingly went through all the entries and determined that the person with the closest guess was Jake Weisberg, who guessed 128,001 (very impressive!). He will receive a $25 Notebook gift certificate, and we will try to figure out something else to put in the owl next year.

We had scores of entries to sort through.

Five Things Learned on the Trip to Sochi 1) Russia covers one-eighth of the land on Earth. I knew it was huge, just not that huge. It's 60 percent bigger than the world's second-largest country (Canada) and nearly twice as big as the U.S. More significant to the future of our planet is the fact that 63 percent of Russia is covered with permafrost. That permanently frozen ground, which, as you probably know, is already thawing at an alarming rate because of climate change, contains great quantities of methane, a major greenhouse gas that could dramatically accelerate that change in the decades ahead.

2) The Caucasus Mountains, in which many of the Sochi Olympic venues are located, are so rich with unique plant and animal life that they are recognized as one of the world's bio-diversity hotspots—that is, spots especially worth protecting. I actually knew this before I went to Sochi because at The Naturalist's Notebook we have an installation that shows all 34 global bio-diversity hotspots. Reading about the diversity of life in the Caucasus while in Russia made me happy that we give it attention at our little shop-exploratorium in Maine.

The bio-diversity hotspot map at The Naturalist’s Notebook. It’ll be there for you to study if you stop in on November 23 or 24.

3) The Black Sea (which is within 200 yards of one of the main Olympic venue complexes) has some strange features. It has virtually no tides, for example, and is much less salty on the surface than most other seas and oceans. The latter is true because the sea takes in more fresh water from rain and rivers (including the Danube) than it loses through evaporation. Also, the surface water and the (much saltier) deep water in the Black Sea are two separate layers that, for complex reasons, do not mix. The deeper water has very little oxygen and very little life, a situation compounded by a huge influx of industrial and agricultural pollution that started around 1960.

The broader topic of ocean saltiness is itself fascinating. I remember reading once that ocean water has the same salinity as human tears—a poetic notion indeed—but in fact typical ocean water is about four times saltier than tears. In any case, salinity levels can vary significantly by latitude and depth even within the same ocean. Ocean surface water tends to be less salty near the Equator because so much rain falls at that latitude, and also near the poles because less water evaporates from the ocean in cold weather.

4) People from the Caucasus Mountains are, logically enough, called Caucasians, and the story behind the use and misuse of that term as a racial identifier is an intriguing and sometimes horrifying tale of 18th-century anthropological theories and measurements of skull shape: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race.

5) Though we saw relatively few birds during our six days in Russia, the country is an important staging and wintering area for 678 bird species, 29 of which are globally threatened. Someone sent me a link to a fun video about a gifted young Russian girl who makes bird calls not by whistling, but with her vocal chords. I don't think the girl normally dresses in the doll-like ceremonial costume she's wearing in the Russian news video below.

Late Election Note I I was in Russia on U.S. election day, so I missed this news item until now. Those of you in Georgia (the state, not the country adjacent to Russia) know about it already. I will quote from the Huffington Post:

"Fictional write-in candidate Charles Darwin was promoted around Georgia's 10th congressional district to provide a symbolic challenge to Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), the outspoken congressman who created a stir earlier this year when video emerged of him calling evolution and the big bang theory 'lies from the pit of hell.'

"Broun had been running unopposed until Jim Leebens-Mack, a plant biologist at the University of Georgia, started a Facebook page floating the idea of running Darwin to challenge the ultraconservative congressman over his anti-science views.

"While there was no chance of actual victory for Darwin (the naturalist died in 1882), his supporters hoped to draw attention to the fact that Broun currently sits on the House Science Committee, despite his apparent disdain for the basic principles upheld by science itself."

The good news is that Darwin received an impressive 4,000 votes despite having been dead for the last 130 years. The bad news is that Broun—who, as you might expect, also calls climate change a hoax—won re-election and will continue to shape congressional science policy.

Election Note II By coincidence, just as newly elected members of the politically polarized U.S. government were debating whether to compromise and work with each other in the best interests of the country, Discover magazine ran a story called "Cooperation Instinct." The piece, based on the research of Martin Nowak, a biologist and mathematician who oversees Harvard's Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, explained how and why humans evolved a willingness to cooperate with each other and how that crucially important trait has helped our species survive. Something to put on the Congressional reading list?

Pamelia and I stopped by the home of noted painter Eric Hopkins recently. His work is fantastic…and so is his palette. It’s an artwork in itself.

Another shot of Eric’s working tools. Very global, don’t you think?

Answer to the Last Puzzler The Russian world bolshoi means large or grand.

Today's Puzzler

This curious seal surfaced near the kayak and studied us for almost a minute.

Sea Dogs and Seahawks, 'Novas and 9/11

September 11, 2011

A joy of kayaking is its intimacy with the natural world. You feel the sway of each wave, the massive weight of the bay with every paddle stroke, the thrill of gliding inches above the surface, eye-level with sea birds and seals.

This week seven of us paddled across an unusually glassy Western Bay under a moody sky. We watched and listened. Cormorants skimmed across the surface after a raucous launch—the splash splash splash of wings whacking water, the dotted line of wavelets tracing their takeoff, the whoosh whoosh whoosh of feathers against air. Terns wheeled and zig-zagged above us. Diving ducks disappeared then rose in the distance.

On the far shore, about 50 seals lay on rocks exposed by the low tide. We tried to keep well away, but they raised their heads to look at us. They were curious. Some of the seals were out swimming, and their doggie faces popped up on either side of the tandem kayak in which I was paddling the ailing-shouldered Pamelia. They stuck their snouts up to sniff. Seals are aptly called sea dogs, and up here in Maine they're celebrated as such. The Portland minor-league baseball team, an affiliate of the beloved Boston Red Sox, is known as the Sea Dogs, as is a popular brewing company. Like loyal pooches, a few of these seals followed us all the way back across the bay.

Zooming in on a distant, wobbly photo of some of the seals hanging out.

The shrieks of ospreys alerted us to an aerial show of diving and fishing. Ospreys—a species once nearly wiped out by DDT—are large raptors who hover, then plummet and hit the water feet-first to pluck fish with their specially evolved talons. As on an owl, one of the three front-facing toes on an osprey can swivel and point backward to give the bird two front-facing and two rear-facing toes for a better grip. We watched ospreys haul off sizable fish to a nearby island, where—to judge from the shrieks—younger ospreys may have been waiting for dinner.

One of the ospreys zooming down on its prey.

Ospreys too have a nickname: seahawks. On this opening weekend of the National Football League season, it seems apt to note that the Seattle Seahawks were named in honor of the ospreys of the Seattle region. Check out the team logo below.

The fierce symbol of the Seattle Ospreys...I mean Seahawks.

We were hungry as well. We pulled ashore on the crushed-shell beach of a deserted island for an overdue picnic (lunch sandwiches...at 5:30 p.m.). Behind the beach was a field of milkweed. Pamelia and I knew that this was a favorite haunt of monarch butterflies, who lay their eggs on milkweed plants. Monarch caterpillars feed only on milkweed, whose whitish juice is toxic and terrible-tasting to most animals—thus protecting the butterflies (who still carry the toxins) from potential predators.

We watched a few monarchs flutter up from the field. Some saplings in the field vaguely resembled the dreaded invasive plant Japanese knotweed—which in a relatively short span of years could wipe out the milkweed and thus this monarch colony—but we decided that they were something else we simply couldn't identify. We did a bit more exploring, of a nearby Native American shell mound, then climbed back into the kayaks as a breeze started kicking up some waves and the daylight faded.

The first to greet us as we arrived back home was not a seahawk or a sea dog but our old land dog, Wooster, who'd been stuck in the house all afternoon. She quickly forgave us and collected her reward: a tasty, salty lick of my happy kayaker's face.

Speaking of Wooster, she is healing well after her recent medical issues, but she really appreciated a lift during a recent hike on Mount Desert Island.

Once In a Generation Event

Twenty-one million years ago a star exploded. This week the bright light from that event finally reached the Earth. Astronomers were dazzled. If you'd looked with a telescope or even good binoculars at a point near the handle of the Big Dipper, you could have seen this supernova, the brightest observed from Earth in 25 years.

Astronomers gave it a name that looks like a typographical error: PTF 11kly. Hardly a worthy handle for what is likely to become the most closely studied supernova in history.

The supernova is marked in this Palomar observatory shot from Peter Nugent and the Palomar Transient Factory

In simple terms, a super-dense, super-hot, white dwarf star blew up, turning into a short-lived supernova and sending its gases and particles in every direction. Those gases and particles will someday form new stars and planets. The heavier elements found on our own planet, in fact, were created billions of years ago in supernovae, whose intense heat forged them from the atoms of lighter elements such as hydrogen.

Looking up at the night sky can be quite a lesson in science and history. When was the last time you got to watch something that happened 21 million years ago?

Up here in Maine, mushrooms seem to be sprouting everywhere. This lovely one (can you identify the type?) didn't look edible.

Word of the DayThis week at The Naturalist's Notebook I met my first phenologist.

Not a phrenologist—that would have been one of those 19th century pseudoscientists who believed that a person's intellect and traits could be read by assessing the size and shape of his or her skull. No, this man was a biologist who speciality in phenology, which is defined as "the scientific study of cyclical biological events, such as flowering, breeding, and migration, in relation to climatic conditions." Phenologists are out there collecting data that help us understand how climate change is altering the number and types of plants and animals we see around us. Too bad climate-change deniers don't spend more time studying the work of phenologists.

By the way, there's an interesting exhibit in Amsterdam right now called the Westerpark Cool Globes that is meant to draw attention to climate change and other global issues. Here's a link to a blog with photos of the large globes that were created for the show: http://maevdkrogt.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/photoessay-westerpark-cool-globes/

Do Moths Have Eyebrows?

A beautiful moth was caught in a spider web outside our front door the other night. Our friend Mel rescued it and it sat on her fingertip, allowing us to study it. We admired its proboscis and its huge eyes.

On close inspection, the moth appeared to have an unruly head of hair.

When we later looked at a photo of the moth, Pamelia said to me, "He has great eyebrows." Being curious, I had to check: Do moths have eyebrows? I discovered that they have short, feathery antennae that, when angled back, can look like eyebrows. In fact, they inspired a Chinese proverb—a pretty darned good one—about the expressive power of those hairy strips above our own eyes:

"The silkworm-moth eyebrow of a woman is the axe that cuts down the wisdom of man."

9/11, A Decade Later

It's a long story, but the attacks on 9/11 helped put in motion a series of events that helped lead Pamelia and I to our life in Maine and, by extension, the invention of The Naturalist's Notebook. Because we travel a lot and because we experienced 9/11 in downtown Manhattan, where we lived at the time, VIA, a California-based travel magazine, asked me to do a short essay on how 9/11 reshaped travel. If you're interested in reading it, you can click on the link below. (You might be asked to type in your zip code, in which case you should enter a California code such as 94110.) http://www.viamagazine.com/other/traveling-ten-years-after-911

Honey Tournament Update

After a brief lull, we've begun the finals of our third annual Sweet 16 Honey-Tasting Tournament. Having survived the brackets, Italian Sunflower is going up against Washington Wild Huckleberry, which until a few days ago we thought was Oregon wild huckleberry (sorry, Beaver Staters). This week will be your final chance, so come in, taste and vote!

Today's Puzzler

Can you shuffle the letters in BURNS ME THERE to spell out three numbers?

What stories will the new year bring? Shake the snow globe and find out.

The 2011 Crystal Ball

December 31, 2010

At midnight tonight the sardine will drop. That is, the eight-foot wooden sardine lowered in coastal Eastport, Maine, to signal the arrival of the new year. It is therefore time to pull out The Naturalist's Notebook's environmentally friendly crystal-ball snow globe for our own annual ritual.

We shake the snow globe and the white stuff flutters down in words and images of next year—a preview of nature and science news and events to watch for. Better that you know in advance, right? So here we go. Let the flakes fall where they may:

7 Billion People. Perhaps you read our September blog entry about the rapid growth of the world's population. The Earth is now projected to reach 7 billion human inhabitatants—an increase of a billion in just over a decade—late in 2011. The consequences for the planet are considerable. In its January cover story National Geographic announced plans to run a year-long series on the subject.

You'll be reading more and more about the more and more people.

Electric Cars. Should you buy one? Do they work? Chevy Volts and Nissan Leafs arrived in showrooms this month, and 2011 could be the launch of a new era. But electric cars require just as much energy as gas-powered ones and will put a new strain on utility companies. Pamelia's brother Scott works in energy conservation for one of those companies, and he is already working to anticipate how to deal with the jolt of increased electrical demand.

National Park Cuts. When the new Congress convenes and starts trying to slash the deficit, the National Park system won't be exempt from scrutiny—even though it is already strapped enough to have to rely on private groups such as Friends of Acadia for help.

Climate Change Inaction. That same Congress includes many new members who think that virtually all of the world's scientists and thermometers are lying, and that global warming is a hoax. Or at least think that 7 billion humans can't possibly have an impact on the planet. In the jobs vs. the environment match-up, the environment will be the heavy underdog.

A Funny Birding Movie. If you haven't read Mark Obmascik's comical book The Big Year, you ought to. It's the true story of three obsessed birders who are each trying to break the record for most North American bird species seen in a year. The big-screen version comes out in 2011, starring Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson.

Jack Black and Steve Martin will help make birding bigger than ever in '11.

The Gulf, A Year Later. You don't have to be a network news director to figure out that the April 20th anniversary of the BP explosion will be a smart time to recap the oil disaster's impact on wildlife. The coverage will play up nature's resilience and make the people who lost fishing jobs seem like the biggest victims.

Dying Bats. Since it appeared in 2006, a deadly fungal infection called white-nose syndrome (which leaves its victims with white snouts) has killed at least a million bats in North America and could soon wipe them out completely in parts of the continent. Mosquitoes are happy: Bats are an important part of the ecosystem and eat astounding numbers of insects that would otherwise attack crops or pester people. As bats suffer, so, to a far lesser extent will spelunkers (recreational cave explorers), who are already being barred from entering certain caves where bats live or lived.

Salvia and Nutmeg. Perhaps this month you saw the secretly shot photo of 18-year-old Miley Cyrus (below), the wholesome singer/actress and Disney icon, taking a puff on pipe filled with... salvia. No, not the beautiful red or purple flowers you grow in your garden, but a strain of the same plant that has hallucinogenic properties yet is generally considered an herb, not a drug. News coverage of late has also touched on teens snorting nutmeg, presumably for an eggnog high. Public outrage will follow, along with the first hard-hitting series ever on HGTV.

DNA and Our Ancestors. Already genetic research tools are helping scientists learn new details every month about the evolution of homo sapiens. This year researchers who are decoding the genome of Neanderthals from fossil evidence discovered that those burly hunters interbred with modern humans tens of thousands of years ago; between one four percent of the DNA found in many of us comes from Neanderthals. That explains a lot.

Mars, Here We Come. In November, NASA is scheduled to launch Curiosity, a science laboratory that will land on the red planet in August 2012. Its mission is to determine the habitability of Mars, in case that climate-change thing turns out not to be a hoax.

The Naturalist's Notebook, Season Three. O.K., so the snow globe didn't exactly predict that the Notebook will be a big story in 2011. However, it's shaky in this area; it also didn't predict that in July 2010, when the Obama family visited Maine, the Notebook would be mentioned in news accounts all around the world (which it was, in a widely reprinted AP story). In any case, we just hope that this year you'll have fun visiting or hearing about the Notebook (where new surprises are in store) and that you'll encourage others to stop in or to follow us through the blog, the website or Facebook. We'll do our best to keep things interesting.

News, Notes and Photos from the Field (Craig and Pamelia's Blog)

Craig & Pamelia's Past Posts

Darwin's Past Posts