On a recent walk I led along the Agawam River Trail for the Wareham Land Trust, I noticed a small clustered group of 3 caterpillars on the underside of a greenbriar (Smilax sp.) leaf. While I normally don’t try to identify most caterpillars, which tend to be small, green and nondescript, these caterpillars were so striking, with their bold black and white markings and yellow undersides that I figured I’d give it a shot. It didn’t take long to pin…
I recently pulled the memory card from my trail camera, and in addition to the expected eastern cottontail rabbits and “normal” white-tailed deer, the area in front of my camera was visited numerous times by a deer with an abnormal antler formation. I have never encountered anything like this before, and some brief googling regarding abnormal antler growth produced a fascinating array of bizarre antler shapes and forms, but nothing that quite resembled the drooping club of an antler that…