Earthwise Aware

💚 Another wonderful morning with the EwA community, watching spring give way to summer. Bill, Laura, Joe, and I were delighted to reconnect with familiar faces and welcome new participants. Thank you to everyone who joined us in the woods, taking the time to observe, wonder, learn, and uncover some of the quieter ecological stories the Fells has to offer.

We encountered a great diversity of life, from slime molds with names as curious as dog-vomit slime mold to beautifully patterned concentric boulder lichens decorating rock surfaces to flowering plants and a wealth of insects flying, foraging, and even mating. One memorable sight was a pair of stream cruisers locked in an embrace on the bark of a flowering dogwood. We also enjoyed the sounds of the forest, including the distinctive hooting of a barred owl.

One of the highlights of the morning was encountering a plant uncommon in the Fells: one-flowered cancer root. Its biology is especially striking, with brownish stems and minute scale-like leaves. Lacking chlorophyll, it cannot photosynthesize and instead depends on other plants for its nutrients. As a reminder, please obscure the location of this species and the patch of lousewort we observed when you upload photos to iNaturalist.

We look forward to returning in a couple of weeks, with plenty more to discover.

A great rest of the weekend to all!

– The Fells Exploration EwA Team

🐛 Join our urban and walks » www.earthwiseaware.org/events | ⓘ More about EwA Participatory Science Program » www.earthwiseaware.org/citizen-science |

Boy, EwA was everywhere today!

One photo is missing: Jen at the Somerville Garden Club event. 😊

A huge thank you to everyone who helped make today such a wonderful day of community engagement and nature connection.

We were tabling at Fresh Pond Day (thank you Sara, Joanne, and James!), Jen was tabling along the Somerville Community Path (thank you, Jen!), Laura, Joe, Bill, and I led a Forest Exploration event at the Fells this morning (thank you to our incredible EwA naturalist leaders, as always!), and I wrapped up the day with an introduction to monitoring plants and wildlife at the Somerville Community Growing Center.

A wonderfully busy day spent with our communities, sharing participatory science, ecology, and curiosity about the living world around us.

Thank you all. 🧡

Cities are now home to foxes, parrots, monkeys, raccoons, boars, and countless bird species. These animals are not temporary visitors, they are becoming permanent urban residents. If we want to support their long-term survival, we need to understand how urban environments shape them at every level, from behavior to bacteria.

Urban wildlife is changing from the inside out (commentary) Cities are expanding faster than at any point in human history, and wildlife is adapting in remarkable ways. We often talk about visible changes like animals becoming bolder, shifting their diets, or altering their daily rhythms to avoid people. But there is a deeper transformation happening inside....

Ha! 💚 I am mesmerized by the tiny stalked hairs with their bulbous, secretion-filled tips that make the bud surface glisten. These are glandular trichomes on the sepals and outer surfaces of the flower buds of hairy beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis) just as they are about to open. Each little "dot" is a short hair topped with a clear, rounded gland that catches the light and sometimes merges with neighboring droplets. The stalks are relatively short, while the heads are swollen and translucent, giving the buds a dewy, resinous appearance rather than the matte fuzz produced by non-glandular hairs.

I am learning that these trichomes secrete a mixture of compounds that make the bud tips tacky. At this early stage of development, the secretions may help deter small herbivores, interfere with tiny crawling insects, protect delicate tissues from drying, and modify the immediate environment surrounding the developing flower.

Looking closer, on my garden's hairy beardtongue buds, the trichomes are densest along the margins and tips of the sepals, exactly where the tissue is about to separate and reflex as the flower elongates. As the buds open, these glistening projections will become less visually dominant. For now, though, they form a spiky armor around the floral parts still tucked safely within.

It is hard not to stop and admire them. Even before the flowers open, the plant has already invested in a remarkable layer of structure and chemistry, a tiny defensive landscape guarding the next stage of its reproductive journey.

Claire at EwA | EwA Pheno Lite observation → www.anecdata.org/posts/view/329010 |

Exploring Nature’s Hidden Life in May with EwA Naturalists

🧡 Another wonderful morning with the EwA community, watching spring continue to unfold. Bill, Laura, Sophie, and I were so happy to reconnect with familiar faces and welcome new ones. Thank you to everyone who joined us and wandered through the woods together, taking the time to observe, wonder, learn, and uncover some of the quiet ecological stories the Fells has to offer.

We explored phenology, the study of recurring seasonal events in nature and how they relate to climate and ecological cycles, and looked closely at flower anatomy, including wild geranium, Canada mayflower, sarsaparilla, and many others. This is a peak season in the forest, with flowers rapidly emerging and dispersing pollen. Soon, the flowers that were successfully pollinated and fertilized will begin producing fruits and seeds.

Insects have finally emerged in earnest. Caterpillars of many species were tucked into folded leaves, hidden in silken tents, or perfectly camouflaged beneath foliage, often nearly impossible to spot even with a trained eye. We also admired a beautiful dragonfly at rest, perhaps pausing after migration. Along the way, we encountered tortoise beetles, winter fireflies, soldier beetles, harvestmen, winged ants, and much more.

We also logged about 20 bird species heard or seen, with many warblers clearly missing compared to the last walk, as they moved to their summer territories. But a good day nonetheless! :-)

We look forward to returning in a couple of weeks, with plenty more to discover.

A great rest of the weekend to all!

– The Fells Exploration EwA Team

🐛 Join our urban and walks » www.earthwiseaware.org/events | ⓘ More about EwA Participatory Science Program » www.earthwiseaware.org/citizen-science |

Protections built by executive decree can be unbuilt by the same mechanism. The legal architecture remains thin, contingent on political alignment rather than ecological necessity. What is presented as permanence can reveal itself as provisional — protection that reflects intention in one moment, but cannot withstand the next.

Reflections on What Endures in Conservation • The Revelator A meditation on building the future without forgetting what already works.

48 'low carbon' initiatives assessed and found integral to the fossil fuel problem.

We reviewed 48 ‘low carbon’ projects and found they were becoming part of the fossil fuel problem These projects amplify the green credentials of fossil fuel firms while leaving their core business model untouched.

✨ Celebrating Melodie’s EwA Phenostories

Our community science work keeps growing thanks to dedicated contributors like Melodie. She was with us at Bellevue, and since moving to Chicago, she has found creative ways to remain actively engaged with EwA by developing resources for our participatory scientists.

One beautiful example of her contribution is the EwA Phenostories guide entry she created for buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis), accessible in our Phenostories library that we develop on the iNaturalist Guides platform. This Phenostory presents this wetland shrub as a “living calendar,” helping observers read seasonal change through its buds, spherical “button” flower heads, and seed structures. Drawing on photos of buttonbush contributed by our community of observers across our various data platforms, Melodie’s entry turns buttonbush from just a name on a species list into a phenology companion, making it easier for observers to move from “I see a shrub” to “I see buttonbush in early flowering,” the level of detail that powers our climate and habitat change work.

By curating these guides from Chicago, Melodie shows how community scientists can stay connected and impactful from anywhere, through careful species storytelling, phenology coaching, and practical tools that support better field observations. And by weaving in community-contributed images, this Phenostory also celebrates the entire EwA community and the rich dataset you are all building together. Melodie is now working on the Phenostory of the red maple, so stay tuned for the next chapter in this growing phenology library!

Read more about Melodie ⧽ https://tinyurl.com/EwA-Melodie-VH
Check Melodie's Buttonbush Phenostory ⧽ https://tinyurl.com/EwA-Buttonbush-PS