Newtown Historic District Salisbury Maryland 21801

06/26/2026

06/26/2026

You saw a big orange-and-black butterfly drift through the garden and called it a monarch. Maybe. But there's a near-perfect copy flying the same gardens this month, and one line on its wing gives it away.

Meet the viceroy — the monarch's most famous look-alike.

From a few feet away they're almost identical: the same burnt-orange wings, the same black veins, the same white-dotted black borders. For generations this fooled people, and it fools predators too, which is the whole point — looking like a monarch is a survival strategy.

But you can tell them apart in one second, once you know where to look. Find the hindwing — the lower wing — and look for a black line that arcs across it, cutting straight through the orange veins. The viceroy has that line. The monarch does not. One extra black stripe across the lower wing, and the ID is done.

A couple of other tells back it up. The viceroy is noticeably smaller, with a quicker, more flapping flight, while the monarch sails on long glides. And the monarch lays eggs only on milkw**d; the viceroy's caterpillars grow up on willow and poplar leaves instead.

Why does it matter which is which? Because they tell you two different stories about your yard. Monarchs mean your milkw**d is doing its job. Viceroys mean your willows and wet edges are. Both are native, both worth having, and both caught in the same long decline thinning butterflies everywhere — so the more host plants you leave standing, the more of each you'll see.

So next time the orange butterfly passes, check the lower wing.

One black line across the hindwing. That's the whole test.

06/26/2026

I WASN’T A GIFT ON YOUR DOORMAT.
YOUR CAT’S TEETH WERE TOO SMALL FOR YOU TO SEE.

You found me by the back door.

A chipmunk.

Still breathing.
Still warm.
Still trying to disappear into my own body.

Maybe there was no blood.

Maybe I even looked “fine.”
Maybe your cat dropped me gently, like a toy it had finished with.
Maybe you thought the kindest thing was to put me back under the bushes.

But please do not release me.

I was not playing.

I was punctured.

Cat teeth are small.
Sharp.
Deep.
They can leave wounds so tiny your eyes never find them beneath fur.

But inside me, those invisible holes can become infection, shock, and pain before the sun rises again.

I am a chipmunk.

I was built for tunnels, seeds, roots, fallen logs, and fast little roads through grass.

Not for being carried in a mouth.

Not for becoming entertainment.
Not for being placed outside again while my body is already losing the fight you cannot see.

Please take me seriously.

Put the cat away.
Wear gloves or use a towel.
Place me gently in a small ventilated box with a soft cloth.
Keep me warm, dark, and quiet.

Do not give me food.
Do not give me water.
Do not try to clean the wounds yourself.

Note exactly where I was found.
Call a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, wildlife center, animal control, or your state wildlife agency right away.

Because if a cat caught me, I need help even when I look unhurt.

I was not a present.

I was a wild life
too small to show you
where it hurt.

Wildlife Center of Virginia warns that cat-inflicted wounds can be subtle and says any wild animal caught by a cat should be taken to a permitted wildlife rehabilitator, even if it appears uninjured, because decline can happen quickly. Florida Fish and Wildlife also advises noting the location and contacting a licensed wildlife rehabilitator when wildlife appears injured or orphaned.

06/26/2026

A long-time Newtown resident, Sister Connie, of Joseph House, has passed away. I don't have details, but she will be buried at Parson's Cemetary on Tuesday.

She was a kind, compassionate person who was a central figure in the Joseph House outreach and programs and growth.

I'll post a link here to her bio on the Joseph House website, and will post her obituary.

https://thejosephhouse.org/the-little-sisters/community/sr-connie/

06/02/2026

The birds in the yard are eating berries you've never tried. Some of those berries are edible for humans too — serviceberry, wild grape, elderberry when cooked. Some of them are genuinely toxic — pokew**d, Virginia creeper, holly, bittersweet nightshade.

The bird doesn't care. She metabolizes compounds that would send you to urgent care.

🌿 The one that surprised me: pokew**d. Over thirty bird species eat the ripe berries. Every other part of the plant — root, stem, leaves, unripe berries — is toxic to humans. The plant most people pull as a w**d is one of the most productive bird-feeding stations in the yard.

Winterberry — bright red berries on bare branches with no leaves in winter. Forty-eight bird species depend on them when nothing else is available. Toxic to humans and pets.

🐾 The chart sorts them. But the rule underneath is simple: never eat a berry you can't positively identify. The bird's tolerance is not yours.

The berries you leave on the bush are feeding everything you're trying to attract 🐾

06/02/2026

The yellow-and-black wasp building a nest inside your mailbox or under your grill lid isn't one of our native paper wasps. She's a European paper wasp — introduced near Boston in the late 1970s and now spread coast to coast.

Our native paper wasps, like the northern paper wasp, are the muted ones. They're dark brown with patchy red and yellow, they have dark antennae, and they hang their open umbrella nests under eaves. They're beneficial — they hunt caterpillars and other garden pests all summer.

🌿 The European paper wasp is the bright one. Her crisp yellow-and-black banding gets her mistaken for a yellowjacket, but her long legs dangle in flight and her abdomen tapers to a narrow waist. The dead giveaway is her antennae: they're bright orange, a color no native wasp wears. She nests earlier and in more places — tucked into cavities like mailboxes, vents, wall voids, and grills — and across much of the eastern US she's been crowding out our native paper wasps. In butterfly gardens she's also a heavy predator of monarch caterpillars.

🐾 The one-check diagnostic:
- Dark antennae + muted brown coloring + open eave nest = native paper wasp.
- Bright orange antennae + crisp yellow-and-black + nest tucked in a cavity = European. Introduced.

One safety note: both wasps will sting to defend a nest, so don't swat at one. If a nest sits somewhere high-traffic, deal with it after dark when the wasps are home, or call a pro — and seal cavities and screen vents in early spring before queens move in. Out of the way, both are quietly working through the caterpillars you'd rather not have.

Two paper wasps. One homegrown, one transatlantic. The antennae tell you which 🌿

06/02/2026

You've been blaming the mole for the dead plants. She didn't touch them. She can't — wrong teeth, wrong digestive system. She eats grubs, earthworms, and beetle larvae. One hundred percent animal protein. Not a single root, bulb, or tuber.

The animal eating your roots is a vole. She's smaller, mouse-like, with round ears and small paws. She runs in surface trails through the grass — and she uses the mole's tunnels as highways to reach your plants underground.

🌿 The mole has large front paws built for digging, a pointed snout, and no visible eyes. She lives entirely underground. The ridges in the lawn are her hunting tunnels — she's chasing grubs through the soil, not chewing roots.

The vole is the one chewing roots, bulbs, and bark. She's the one girdling the base of young trees in winter. She looks like a mouse and lives at the surface.

Two animals. One blamed. One guilty. The diagnostic is simple — large paws and no eyes underground equals mole. Mouse-like and surface trails in the grass equals vole.

The mole was innocent. The vole did it 🐾