Nature noticings
Tiny accounts of what I’m noticing outside right now.
I got to interact with one of THESE this week! I was filled with delight and wonder to see that when I went to help this little friend off the driveway, it/they lifted up their front end to look a whole lot like a little orange snake with giant eyes! Amazing! Nature is so cool and endlessly surprising!
And what feels magical to me is that directly before I saw and identified this caterpillar, I had recognized and munched on a spicebush berry. Only to find out when I did some research that this likely is a spicebush swallowtail caterpillar!
NATURE NOTICINGS
Tiny accounts of what I’m noticing outside right now.
October 30, 2025
The autumn color has been SPECTACULAR this year! I love each season for its own reasons, and along with many other folks, I believe Autumn around here is extra special. In addition to the astounding beauty, the naturalist in me appreciates that I notice the tree leaves as individuals in a different way as they change color than I do when they’re in summertime’s concert of greens. One such leaf stood out to me last week on a walk. I noticed how HUGE they were, on the ground and yellow, underneath a tree I’m not sure I’d paid attention to before.
I could’ve used my phone to identify it but I have been having fun researching and referencing, including cracking open the always rabbit-hole of a book, Botany in a Day. I have ideas about what it is. Do you? :-)
The first one I noticed, and then one I found the day I took the photo, with my hand for size reference.
Nature noticings
The more time I spend paying attention outside in the natural world, the more I want to, the more I feel alive in my body, and the more my innate curiosity emerges and deepens.
Tiny accounts of what I’m noticing outside right now.
the Aurora Borealis from our deck here in Southern Appalachia November 11, 2025
November 16, 2025
The more time I spend paying attention outside in the natural world, the more I want to, the more I feel alive in my body, and the more my innate curiosity emerges and deepens. Just this past week I have had several encounters that I’ve thrilled in - 3 deer sightings, and today what I’m guessing was a bobcat scratching post situation on a tree near the path where I walk most days! But seeing the Aurora Borealis from my own deck felt so deep and primal and mysterious to me. I stayed out there till after I could no longer feel my feet. I was just so captivated. The photo doesn’t look like much but that pink plume in the center I could see with my eyes. Not as vividly as my phone could capture it, but I could still see it.