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1 week ago | 
chasingnature.substack.com | Bryan Pfeiffer
As Israel and Iran went to war, the vireo sang his melody from a Silver Maple in my yard. He sang through news of a plane crashing in India. And he continued to sing the morning a deranged man shot to death public servants in the U.S. state of Minnesota. But let’s be honest about the Red-eyed Vireo: As songbirds go, this isn’t exactly an icon of charisma or even respite in times of terror. Lots of birdwatchers regard the Red-eyed Vireo, cast in muted olive, as bland or pedestrian.
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2 weeks ago | 
chasingnature.substack.com | Bryan Pfeiffer
Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -40:12Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. In its enchanting song, the Black-faced Solitaire stops the world from spinning too fast. So listen for this songbird — and perhaps stick around for insights on nature, harmony, conservation, hope, gadgets, and writing on Substack.
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1 month ago | 
chasingnature.substack.com | Bryan Pfeiffer
TWENTY-TWO years ago, when things were about to go really bad in the prairie, I had a brush with extinction. No, not my own demise, but rather the prospective oblivion of a little butterfly named Poweshiek Skipperling (Oarisma poweshiek). We met on a sunny day in a wet prairie fen in southern Michigan. Rather than float or flutter like most butterflies, skipperlings dart and scurry.
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1 month ago | 
chasingnature.substack.com | Bryan Pfeiffer
Color, music, flight, and grace mingle in the lives of birds. But few birds pull it off like warblers. What’s a warbler? The standard definition is: a small, vocal, colorful, migratory bird in the family Parulidae. But this is an injustice to warblers. So here’s my definition:war•bler | ˈwôrb(ə)lər |noun(1) A force of nature, like gravity or chocolate or lovemaking, like harmony or a sunset or a shooting star.
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1 month ago | 
chasingnature.substack.com | Bryan Pfeiffer
IN THIS ERA of lies and hyperbole, here is a bird truly worthy of its superlatives: robust, dazzling, theatrical.
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2 months ago | 
chasingnature.substack.com | Bryan Pfeiffer
IN THE naked woods of April, you will find neither tariffs nor turmoil — only grace and renewal. Spring-beauties emerge to bloom hot pink from last autumn's fallen leaves. The flowers of Hepatica are soft pastels of blue, lilac, or cream. And the Bloodroot: well, the Bloodroot is immune to the blood sport of commerce and politics. The world economy, we are told, is in upheaval owing to men in power with ideas about money and free markets. Stock prices swing. People profit. People suffer.
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2 months ago | 
chasingnature.substack.com | Bryan Pfeiffer
Greetings, readers: Here’s my contribution to an evening of poetry, verse, and music celebrating National Poetry Month and Poem City here in Montpelier, Vermont, a few days ago. Also, please scroll onward to the spring beauties below and my note to Chasing Nature’s paying subscribers. Thanks!GRANTED, I’m not an early bird. I sleep through the confetti of warblers at dawn, and then doze with one eye open to the humans below me going about their rituals.
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Mar 28, 2025 | 
jasonanthony.substack.com | Jason Anthony |Bryan Pfeiffer
Hello everyone:The Field Guide is taking the week off so that I can bring you some good news: My book, The Roast Penguin Chronicles, has just launched from Compass Rose Press. It’s part memoir, part history of the human experience of Antarctica through a “culinary” lens. The book is built from a century of remarkable stories of life on the ice, from the sagas of early exploration up through the 20th century and recent years, including my own near-decade on the ice.
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Mar 27, 2025 | 
chasingnature.substack.com | Bryan Pfeiffer |Bill Davison |Mk Creel |Bill McKibben
IT HAPPENED sometime after the Barred Owl called out to its mate, but before the Silver Maple erupted into crimson fireworks. On that day, one of you clicked a button on your glowing screen and became Chasing Nature’s 10,000th subscriber. Although I myself can herald this milestone with gratitude (and announcements for you below), the natural world, if it could, would probably shrug off 10,000 of anything.
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Mar 17, 2025 | 
chasingnature.substack.com | Bryan Pfeiffer
THEIR BEAUTY AND GRACE alone would seem to warrant at least some measure of loyalty and reciprocity on our part. And that is to say nothing of how they’ve become iconic in our culture — from poetry to jewelry, spirituality to tattoos. So by now you’d think we would have found a way to get along with butterflies. Nope, sorry. Despite their glitter and charisma, we humans are destroying butterflies in far too many places — and therefore making the world less beautiful and less interesting.
