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When the queen-to-be hatches, worker bees will feed her a strict diet of rich royal jelly. After another five and a half days the larva changes into a pupa, and seven days later the new queen's cell is sealed shut to hide her from my prying eyes.

The chemistry professor in me can’t watch that shift from wood to ash without asking questions. Why is heat leaving the burning wood? Was the heat there all along, just waiting for me to strike a match?

Bright red berries. Glossy red berries that gleamed like a beacon in the shade. Berries that whispered “eat me” in a hue of red so vivid it promised death. I stopped and stared. That red. Into my mind, suddenly blank of everything except those berries, a word dropped like a pebble into a still pool: tantalizing.

Recently, I have been thinking about the food chain that sustains the wildlife here. Where does it begin? When did it begin? What if I looked more deeply than what I can see with my eye? I want to learn about the microbiome of this wonderful area.

Sage is suddenly everywhere—everywhere, that is, where it’s not too parched even for this hardiest of dryland flora. Low, vertical cliffs of tan sandstone have replaced the steep, evergreen-covered mountains as the dominant landform. We have just entered another world: the Bighorn Basin.

The canopy opens where a shallow stream crosses the path, revealing two small, silvery blue butterflies flitting about in slow and bouncy patterns. As I find my footing rock-by-rock across the stream, I recall an unusual aspect of the life cycle of these butterflies.

In murder mysteries, the protagonist is often surprised to find a crime. A national park was the last place we expected one.

On a warm June day, at our farm in the Mission Valley, I was watching my husband and son play in the yard, honeybees from our two colonies buzzing nearby. Suddenly, my attention was captured by a steady increase in the number of bees on the air, catching and refracting sunlight with their golden bodies.

Where initially the herd was scattered throughout the sage along the forest edge, they had now moved toward the road and were gathered together in a tight cluster. They were nervous, gazing toward the trees, ears cocked forward. They paced anxiously, some spinning in circles. I could hear a lot of mewing and a few barked alarms. These are clear signs a predator was near, probably the grizzly bear and cubs I had spotted in the area the day before.

Riparian zones are found along the banks of a river, stream, or other moving water source, surrounded by vegetation that relies on water. These habitats are home to a wide range of flora and fauna that meet birds’ survival needs.