Kerry Wixted

Connecting Nature & Community

Tag: maryland

A wooly white gall with pink spots on an oak.

Oh, the Gall! Gall-making Wasps

Have you seen a weird lump, bump, and/or projection growing off a leaf or stem of a plant? If so, you might have encountered a gall which is an abnormal growth of plant tissue caused by an invertebrate, fungi, and/or bacteria. Gall-making invertebrates secrete chemicals (like proteins) as they feed, causing plant tissue to form
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Jewels of the Wasp World

One group of wasps that captivated me early on are the Chrysididae, or cuckoo wasps. They are jewels of the wasp world, adorned with metallic colors that seem to iridize with light along the pitted design of their exoskeleton. Their colors are complex and are created by light refracting through open spaces between six layers
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Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice: Meet the Eastern Red Bat

Happy fall! With pumpkin spice season around the corner, I wanted to focus on our pumpkin-colored bat species: the eastern red bat. They are one of 11 species of bats documented in Maryland and are one of the more common ones you can see around Maryland. Eastern red bats are known as ‘tree bats’ since
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Summer Safety Essentials

Now that I am back to summer field work, I figured it would be a good time to go over some of the ways that I keep myself safe. Early in my field workdays, I was quite unprepared for some of the hazards I would experience, even common ones like dehydration. So, I’m going to
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Who Ya Gonna Call? Injured & Orphaned Wildlife

Around mid-April, we get into baby season in Maryland. As a naturalist, I receive countless questions on what to do with sick, injured, and orphaned wildlife. Maryland Dept. of Natural Resources has some information pages on what to do and who to call. Please save this post. First and foremost, Disney has taught us that
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Eastern Coyotes

A tale I often hear is how Maryland and other state wildlife agencies secretly introduced coyotes into their states. Sometimes, the release was done in conjunction with insurance agencies. Sometimes, it was done just because. People will repeat stories of coyotes running around with “State Farm” ear-tags and the secrecy of the project to reduce
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Secrets of Skunk Cabbage

For many years, I took skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) for granted. It was that stinky plant that dominated wetlands and helped frogs hide from my youthful pursuit. In college, I learned how it was a wetland indicator plant, meaning its presence marked a wetland. It wasn’t until I met Master Naturalist (and later friend!), Siobhan
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A Better Guide to Yellow, Stripey Things

Did you know? Maryland has over 1,200 documented wasp species, many of which are super tiny and exist around you without you realizing they are there. I have spent the last 20 years working with wildlife and unlearning a lot of harmful stereotypes I grew up with (snakes are dangerous/spider bites cause major medical issues/
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Giant, Flying Spiders

This week, I have been combatting the clickbait news which has made it seem like giant, venomous spiders are going to drop from the sky. Here are a few things to note: Here is what is true: To provide some more context, ballooning, also known as kiting, is a method by which spiders and some
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