Kerry Wixted

Connecting Nature & Community

Author: kwixted0

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Slimy Season: Spotted Salamander Edition

This week, I finally got to check off a life list item: see spotted salamanders in their annual breeding frenzy. For years, I have gone out either too early or too late and/or had this pesky thing called ‘work’ derail my plans. When I saw the predicted forecast of a warm, rainy night, I jumped
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Guinea Pig First Aid Essentials

While most of my writings so far have centered around wildlife, I wanted to post about one of my other passions: guinea pigs. I was first introduced to the world of pigs as a young girl, and we did almost everything wrong from keeping them in tiny cages, feeding them the wrong diet, etc. In
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Screams in the Night

On winter nights, you might hear harrowing sounds reminiscent of a woman screaming in the woods. Those chilling calls are actually from our local red foxes. Red fox mating season begins in January and continues through March. During this time, competing males will scream at each other while females, aka vixens, will scream to attract
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Wild Teenagers on the Town

As kids head back to school, our local mammal neighbors are also experiencing a new education. In the fall, many local fox, raccoon, and skunk families tend to break up as this year’s young head off on their own. Because of this, we will have increased sightings of “teenagers on the town”, particularly during the
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How to Host a #MothParty

Today is the end of the 12th annual #NationalMothWeek which is designed to “celebrate the beauty, life cycles, and habitats of moths.” Like many, I believe the first moth that captivated me was the Luna moth, but my quest to learn about all things nature led me to realize how vast the world of moths
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#Arachtober: There Be Pirates

You might be thinking: what’s the connection between pirates and spiders? Well, buckle up because in this post, we’re going to dive (or sail) our way into the weird world of pirate spiders. As you might have guessed, pirate spiders conduct raids but instead of working on the high seas, they raid webs. Pirate spiders
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#Arachtober: Secrets of the Silk

Spider silk has always been a supernatural material. It’s strong, stretchy, and lightweight. University of Leicester’s Physics students have even determined that it could stop a train (like in Spiderman) if the silk came from Darwin’s bark spider (Caerostris darwini), an orbweaver with strong silk. But, what exactly is spider silk made of? And why
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#Arachtober: Funnel Weaver Friday

It’s Friday, so let’s celebrate some of our local spiders that make pretty intense webs: funnel-web spiders (Agelenidae). At the time of this posting (Oct 2022), ten species of Agelenids have been identified in Maryland. Agelenids typically build a a horizontal, sheet-like web with a funnel on one side (hence their common name). Like most
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#Arachtober: Charlotte’s Web

Charlotte’s Web was one of my favorite movies as a child. I LOVED watching it over and over again, but I missed how much spider biology was intricately woven into the movie and novel. Did you know? Charlotte’s full name was Charlotte A. Cavatica. She was modeled after the barn spider (Araneus cavaticus). Wonderfully enough,
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