I stood on the bank at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum in June and cast my green frog top lure out into an open patch of water amid the weeds knowing somewhere in there swam northern snakeheads. Twenty years ago, they probably didn’t. The northern snakehead, or Channa argus, hails from East
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I met up with my friend Robin Irizarry at the third base gate of Citizens Bank Park. We made it through security and strolled the first level. Like a lot of fans at the game, we were looking for something to eat. Unlike presumably everyone else, we were also looking for birds. I had been
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Last fall labor organizers at the National Audubon Society began asking non-managerial staff at the 116-year-old environmental organization whether they would like to form a union in partnership with Communications Workers of America (CWA). A majority of staff, including workers in Philadelphia, voted yes, but Audubon has yet to recognize the group as an entity
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San Francisco has its earthquakes and Miami has its hurricanes, but the disaster Philadelphia most often confronts is flooding. Flooding is the most common natural disaster in the country, with Pennsylvania experiencing the most flood occurrences of any of the 50 states. And climate change all but promises that the near future will be wetter,
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Straddling the border between Southwest Philadelphia and Delaware County, Mount Moriah Cemetery has long been one of my favorite places to observe wildlife. I turn up salamanders and snakes. I watch deer watch me before snorting in alarm and bounding away, white tails flashing. More than once a red fox has kept an eye on
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The heart of the summer is here, and so are hordes of spotted lanternflies. They’re probably sucking on plants outside your window right now. Outside you might step on one if the opportunity presents itself, and, like a lot of Philadelphians, you might go further in a quest to eliminate the invasive bugs. Over the
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It was flooding in the Ablett Village public housing development in Camden’s Cramer Hill neighborhood. It had rained overnight from Saturday, April 24, into Sunday, April 25, and that brought water that pooled in driveways and on the sidewalks running between the area’s long, two-story brick apartment buildings. This is not at all unusual, according
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About 120 years ago a nature enthusiast named Charles McIlvaine explored the Angora Woods of West Philadelphia hunting for mushrooms. While most of the Angora Woods have long since been built up, a fringe of the area remains along Cobbs Creek. It was there that I met up with a modern-day fungi enthusiast, Luke Smithson.
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This is the first time I’ve ever cracked open a beer as I started an article. It’s a Delco Lager from 2SP Brewing Company: a bit malty and quite drinkable, good for a warm spring day. At 4% alcohol by volume (ABV), the buzz shouldn’t interfere with writing (you be the judge). The alcohol isn’t
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On May 9, 1715, Andreas Sandel, a minister at the Gloria Dei Church, aka Old Swedes’ (929 South Water Street), made a note in his journal that “some singular flies came out of the ground.” “The English call them locusts,” he wrote. “When they left the ground, holes could be seen everywhere in the roads
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