Welcome to Pam Owen's
Wild Ideas nature blog!

Nature holds the key to our aesthetic,
intellectual, cognitive, and even
spiritual satisfaction.

— E. O. Wilson

Blog Posts

Featured posts

Ratsnakes shed old skins…with a little help

Jun 23
6 min

Ratsnakes shed old skins…with a little help

On warm days in this spring, an Eastern Ratsnake had been regularly visiting the deck of the cabin. Two had shed out there last year — a...

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Fall ’shrooms: Identifying a red bolete mushroom

Pam Owen

Jan 18
3 min

Fall ’shrooms: Identifying a red bolete mushroom

Testing some red bolete mushrooms to determine the species can be tricky, as mushroom identification generally is.

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Pam Owen

Jan 18
6 min

Fall ’shrooms: Troops of tiny fungi

Hunting for mushrooms, I found a group of tiny ones that looked like little soldiers, but were they a troop, a cluster, or just gregarious?

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Explore nature with me—

Join me in exploring nature and conservation in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and beyond. Start with the blog posts below, check out the photo pages, and find out more about Wild Ideas and me. If you like what you see, get updates by subscribing to the site for free (see below) and follow Wild Ideas on Twitter (@WildIdeas). Comment by clicking on the button at the end of each post, or go to the Contact page to email general comments about the site or to reach me.

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— Pam Owen

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