Season 2 of the Naturalist Podcast begins with Episode 11!  Lev goes on a hunt for big weasels. Sea checks out the Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive with the King of the Soras and finds fish in the road.  A brief review of the new “Field Guide to the Fishes of the Amazon, Orinoco & Guianas”.  Tropical adventures with Semester at Sea and in Costa Rica and great plans for the coming season!

In this episode Sea and Lev discuss the arrival of Fall and the coming of winter, some spectacular shearwater feeding flocks off of Cape Cod, Lev sees Blue Whales in person, a new book by Walt Judd, and some discussion of what are the things we carry with us in our field bags.

This episode starts with Lev and 300 of his closest friends singing for wolves, and quickly goes from there as we discuss the end of summer and the start of fall and all that means:  migrating birds and high calorie diets, and how life is just unfair to ‘teenagers’.  Sea pitches his favorite book of the week:  http://www.bioquip.com/specials/book_special.asp , a new* spectacular fossil from Alberta, and the search for the star-nosed mole in Ohio.  If you are on the Facebook, please join us...

In this episode Lev goes to the bogs of Northern Ontario, Sea gets way excited about shrewmoles, talk of how to get into studying Odonates, and both guys would prefer not to be eaten by bears.

In this episode Sea gets to dig down deep into the leaf litter with “Creepy Crawly” specialist Casey Richart.  Casey studies harvestmen, millipedes, slugs, snails and has developed a unique perspective on evolution, biodiversity, and conservation from his studies.  The vocabulary might be a bit heavy, but we’ll have some helpful notes on the Facebook page as people chime in.

Lev and Sea catch up after some springtime adventuring.  Talk of the summer season, with turtles crossing roads, and herp hunting raptors. Lots of discussion of pelagic birds; petrels, storm petrels, and albatrosses.  In Natural History News, a new flying squirrel is described for North America, an extinct bird found in amber, and the possibility of a zombie egg!

Spring is well underway in the North (finally!) and Lev and Sea have lots to talk about.  The hawks are back, the birds might freeze, a challenge is issued.  The iNaturalist city nature challenge, a spectacular insect collection, and a few new books are among the highlights, and Lev is gearing up for some amazing trips!

Spring is moving like a freight train into the North.  Salamanders are moving into breeding grounds with all sorts of mysteries, Lev gets started with his fish spotting for the year while Sea gets a new family in the Bahamas.  Nick investigates gulls in CT and Zach makes a video of interesting worm biology.  Moth season starts! Link to Dave Shaw: www.david-w-shaw.com Wikipedia definition of Polyploidy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyploid Wikipedia definition of Neoteny:...

Lev guides innocent birders to boreal specialties and frozen frogs.  A warm weather spell gets some early migration going.  Feeder birds and food choices.  Ancient otters in the news.  Lev finds a new mammal in his park, and spring is on the way!

The snow gets deeper, and animals are looking for open water.  Lev and Sea chat about eastern eagles, scavenging Fishers, Eastern Wolves,  winter owls, the NY Ross’ Gull, the PA Black-backed Oriole and vagrant birds.  Sea mentions a recent trip to Bermuda, Lev reviews “Life in the Blue”.

Welcome to the Naturalist Podcast!  In episode 1 we chat about the arrival of winter, wandering sparrows, ‘badger-ness’ and excavation in woodpeckers, dinosaurs in amber, a jaguar sighting, some new documentaries and books.