Category: Coast Environments
A Field Guide to the Southeast Coast & Gulf of Mexico
A uniquely comprehensive guide to more than 600 species of fauna & flora along the coasts of the southeastern United States.
Glacial Lake Connecticut map
For an upcoming book project I've been working with Ralph Lewis, the former Connecticut state geologist on making my LIS geology maps and figures more accurate. Lordship and Stratford Point stick out so far in the Sound because the area was a wedge (moraine and outwash river fan) between two giant ice sheet lobes, the Hudson ...
Labrador duck drake
Labrador Duck drake (Camptorhynchus labradorius), an extinct species that once wintered off the New England and mid-Atlantic coasts. Last seen alive in 1875. A reminder that we can lose whole species, and that we stand to lose many more in the next century if we don't change our ways very soon. Photoshop illustration.
Labrador Duck (detail)
Labrador Duck drake (Camptorhynchus labradorius), head detail. Photoshop illustration.
Sassafras trees
Sassafras tree trunks, Bluff Point State Park. I've always been fascinated by the strange, twisted forms of sassafras groves.
Birth of a Common Tern
A sequence (on Flickr) of photos of a Common Tern (Sterna hirundo) hatching from its egg. Shot in 1981 when I was a volunteer on a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tern banding project on Falkner Island, off Guilford, Connecticut, U.S.A.
Disruptive camouflage
When you look at a Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) in isolation it looks boldly-striped—the antithesis of what you'd expect from an animal trying to blend into its background. But in natural settings the black-and-white stripes work very effectively to break up the silhouette of the bird, making it surprisingly hard to spot against the background. At Hammonsasset ...
Wood Duck (Aix sponsa)
Wood Duck family (Aix sponsa). Photoshop painting. Available as a limited edition print.
The dangers of ‘ghost gear’
Discarded monofilament line and other fishing gear can be incredibly persistent and deadly in the environment. Experts estimate that modern monofilament line will take as much as 600 years to fully degrade in marine conditions. That's 600 years of deadly entanglements and thousands of dead or maimed animals. This Great Black-backed Gull's foot is entangled ...
Patrick Lynch 