Mr. G - Nature Guide

Here's what July is about to bring to your yard.

You feel like summer just settled in, but the busy calendar already has new pages. Here's the forecast for the next few weeks — what to watch for, and what to leave be.

The nights get loud. As the heat grows, katydids and crickets fill the dark, and the annual cicadas ramp up their afternoon drone. By month's end, the yard is a wall of sound — all of it courtship, none of it a threat.

The second wave of babies arrives. Many chipmunks and groundhogs are raising a second litter, fox pups follow their parents on hunts, and this year's young squirrels are learning the yard. July looks half-grown and awkward — but most of what seems "abandoned" right now isn't. The parents are nearby; the best move is to watch and step back.

The insects take over. With the spring flowers gone, dragonflies patrol the evening yard, fireflies fade out, and the ambush hunters — assassin bugs, robber flies, mantises — reach their peak. It’s the height of bug season in the best way.

The fruit ripens. Elderberry and mulberry ripen along the fence lines, with pokeweed close behind (that one's for the birds, not you — it's toxic to people). The birds start shifting from your feeder to the wild food sources.

🌿 And the first part of fall begins. The earliest shorebirds are already heading south, even as the longest days slip behind us.

One task for you this month: water and shade. In real heat, a shallow dish with stones and a shaded, damp corner matter more than anything you can buy in a bag.

The season is quietly changing. Now you know where to look. 🐾

For centuries, we've been told there are only three states of water: solid, liquid, and gas. But get ready to have your mind blown.

Scientists have just discovered evidence of a *fourth* state—called 'exclusion zone (EZ) water'—and it's found in abundance inside living plants! This isn't ordinary H₂O; it's a special phase that's more ordered than regular liquid but not quite frozen. It forms a structured, gel-like layer that carries a negative charge, acting like a tiny battery inside plant cells. This incredible water could power extraordinary processes, such as defying gravity to move nutrients, and even help plants generate energy. It's a whole new perspective on how life works and the fundamental properties of the most common substance on Earth!

🤯 What other 'hidden' wonders of nature do you think are waiting to be discovered?

The diet is written on the face — you have to read it! The bill is the tool, and the shape is the job. Take the goldfinch, for example: its short, conical bill acts like a seed mill, so dedicated to seeds that a cowbird chick sneaks into its nest and ends up starving on the all-seed menu provided by its parents.

On the other hand, the Carolina wren's thin, slightly curved bill functions like a pair of tweezers, flipping leaves and probing bark for spiders and caterpillars. Same yard, but completely different equipment!

Now, let's talk about the green heron—this bird is a showstopper! It shares a dagger-like bill with the great blue heron but has a unique fishing trick that few animals possess: it uses bait! Whether it's dropping a feather, twig, or live insect into the water, it freezes and waits for a curious fish to swim within reach. This makes it one of the rare tool-using birds on Earth.

The avocet also has a long, thin bill that curves upward, allowing it to sweep side to side through shallow water like a scythe, straining out tiny shrimp and water bugs. Meanwhile, the chimney swift sports a nearly non-existent bill that opens into a wide net for scooping insects right out of the air!

Then there's the sapsucker, which chisels neat rows of wells into living bark to drink the sap that bleeds out. And let’s not forget about the great horned owl with its hooked bill capable of tearing apart prey larger than itself—rabbits, skunks, and even other owls!

The robin? Its medium bill does it all: worms in spring and berries in winter.

Eight bill shapes. Eight diets. These birds have already told you what they eat; you have to read the tools they're carrying!

Piping plover nest exclosures look like something you could build in an afternoon. They changed the math of a declining species.

The wire cage is an 18-inch dome with a slot the incubating adult can pass through, wide enough for a seven-inch shorebird and narrow enough to deter a crow or a fox. The Great Lakes piping plover nest exclosure program placed one of these cages around each active nest starting in the late 1980s. Then someone would walk out to each cage daily to check on it.

Save this for the next time someone asks what conservation actually looks like.

Rain doesn't just wash the leaves as it falls; it actively gathers nutrients along the way. As droplets plummet through the atmosphere, they absorb dissolved nitrogen—the vital nutrient that fuels lush, green growth—and carry it straight to the roots below. No bags, no scoops, no extra cost—just natural chemistry happening at thirty thousand feet. In contrast, tap water often arrives with a higher pH and chemicals from treatment processes, slowly building up in the soil. This isn’t an emergency, just a quiet friction that occurs with each watering. Rainwater sidesteps most of these issues. Its slightly acidic pH helps unlock minerals already in the soil, making them easier for roots to absorb. With every storm, three things happen simultaneously—watering, adjusting soil chemistry, and delivering vital nutrients. It’s a logistical marvel most engineered systems would envy. The sky has been delivering nutrients long before agriculture, and it does so without charging a delivery fee.

We didn’t notice them leaving. 😢😢

They didn’t disappear overnight. They left gradually.

One forest at a time.
One river at a time.
One wetland at a time.
One careless decision at a time.

While we were busy buying the latest model, nature was losing its oldest members.

The bee left quietly.
The frog stopped singing.
The birds changed their migration routes.
The fish disappeared from the river.
And the animals moved toward extinction while humans kept scrolling.

This is the tragedy of our time: we are not watching the collapse… we are shopping through it.

When biodiversity is gone, humans don’t win.
We stand next in line.

You don't have to be afraid of the giant insect that just landed near you. June produces a handful of absolute units — big, loud, armored, or armed-looking — and the most fearsome-looking ones in your yard are, almost without exception, the ones that can't do a thing to you.

Here are five that look like threats but aren't.

Start with the one as long as your thumb: the cicada killer. A wasp that dive-bombs your lawn and digs craters in the bare spots — and the males doing the dive-bombing have no stinger at all.

Next, the dobsonfly. The male carries a pair of curved jaws, half as long as his body, which look like something dredged from a lakebed. They're for wrestling other males, not you — he can barely pinch a finger.

Then the giant ichneumon wasp, trailing a long thread off her back end that everyone reads as a monstrous stinger. It's an ovipositor — a tool for laying eggs deep in wood. She cannot sting you with it.

The crane fly, the leggy "giant mosquito" bouncing off your porch light, has no biting parts at all and has never tasted blood in its life. Harmless to you and to your yard.

And the pelecinid wasp, a glossy black insect with an impossibly long, whippy abdomen, looks engineered for harm and carries none — no sting that can reach you.

Five insects built like monsters, and not one of them is a danger. The scariest-looking bug in the yard is almost always doing the least dangerous job.

Big and fearsome rarely mean dangerous. It usually just means useful.