Bio Bits are short essays about the natural world. Read about plants like shadbush, winterberry, witch-hazel, and red cedar; birds such as Bufflehead, Least Tern, Chimney Swifts, and Carolina Wren; and other creatures like darners, salamanders, spiders, monarch butterflies, worms, mussels, and horseshoe crabs; and other topics like the value of fallen leaves.

Bio Bits appeared in the Menunkatuck Newsletter from January 1999 through December 2014.

Birds

• American Crows – Intelligent Opportunists

• A Touch of the Tropics in Connecticut’s Woods

• Blue Jays, Beech Trees, Black Bears, and Beech Bark Disease – A Complex Relationship

• Bufflehead – A Visitor from the North

• Chimney Swifts Need Our Help

• Coffee – It’s for the Birds

• Flying Ants and the Birds That Love Them

• Fox Sparrow

• Great Horned Owl Is Early Nester

• Gregarious Cedar Waxwings

• Hairy Woodpecker – A Special Visitor

• Hoarding For a Wintry Day

• How To Feed And Clean A Turkey

• Hummingbird Heaven

• Just Another Piece Of Bark?

• Least Tern – Diminutive and Diminishing

• Neotropical Migrants and White-tailed Deer

• Noisy Willets of the Salt Marsh

• Nuthatches Require Second Look

• Perky Carolina Wren Is Busy Nesting

Plants

• Coffee – It’s for the Birds

• Early Blossoming Shadbush

• Jack-In-The-Pulpit – An Unusual Wildflower

• November Welcomes the Witch-Hazel’s Blooms

• Radiant Bloodroot

Mammals

• A Buck’s Antlers

• It Glides Through The Air With The Greatest Of Ease

• Neotropical Migrants and White-tailed Deer

• Opossums Suffer From Frostbite

Amphibians/Reptiles/Insects

• A Bug That’s Easy to Love

• Ants Are More than Just a Delicious Meal

• Asian Longhorned Beetle Pose Serious Threat

• Black Fly Season

• Flying Ants and the Birds That Love Them

• Finding Arrowheads

• Of Garters and Ribbons

• Ole Redlegs

• Pandorus Sphinx Caterpillar

• Salamander Rains

• Secret World Under Our Noses

• Sacred Dung Rollers

• Teeming Life in a Drying Pool

Other

• American Eels Are Common in Local Waters

• Fallen Leaves -Nature’s Fertilizer

• Freshwater Mussels – Hitchhikers on Fish

• Please Don’t Feed the Bears

• Red Bats Found in Guilford

• Seals Visit Long Island Sound in Winter

• Snoozing Bears

• The Return of the Fisher

• The Magnificent Ebony Jewelwing

• The Misunderstood Snapping Turtle

• The Mourning Cloak

• The Secret Code Of Fireflies

• The Ubiquitous Green Darner

• This Fly Has Gall

• Time For Bullfrogs To Hibernate

• Tiny Jumping Spiders Are Endearing Predators

• Tracking the Monarch’s Journey

• Trilling Treefrogs

• Wandering Red Efts and Beaver Ponds

• Water Fairies

• When Is a Duck Not a Duck?

• Harmless Garden Surprise

• Here’s Looking at You, Kid

• Horseshoe Crabs Are Not Crabs