Walkin' on the Wild Side

It's time for another episode of Walkin' on the Wild Side!  Join Gabrielle and Marvin on the back porch as we talk about that master of mimicry, the northern mockingbird.  Join us and learn more about this "prolific polyglot" and hopefully develop a little appreciation and fondness for this tenacious, territorial, bold, and vociferous bird of backyards, neighborhoods, parks, and urban settings!

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It's time for another episode of Walkin' on the Wild Side and this episode literally fell from the sky for Gabrielle and I!  We are fortunate to have a family of Red-shouldered hawks living in our woods and they put on a show recently, literally waking Gabrielle up with their loud shrieking.  So we figured, why not dedicate an episode to these awesome birds?  Join us out on the back porch as we talk a little more about th...

Hey everyone, it's time for another episode of Walkin' on the Wild Side!  This time, tragedy at with our screech owl family prompted us an opportunity to talk about the sometimes seemingly "cruel" side of Mother Nature.  Join Marvin and Gabrielle on the back porch to talk about the often misidentified, misunderstood, and sometimes just plain despised eastern rat snakes.  They have gone through numerous name chan...

Hey Everyone!  I  know we've done a podcast on cicadas earlier, but I couldn't help myself, I had to focus on the magical periodic cicadas.  I'm flying solo for this episode, so join me on the back porch "studio" for a "magical" episode.  The 13 year cicadas are emerging and making a lot of noise, so tune in and learn about these amazing arthropods and what is the reason behind such a weird life c...

Hey everyone!  Join us for a podcast on location during an "impromptu" trip to San Antonio!  Join Marvin and Gabrielle as they chat about the beautiful city of San Antonio, Texas.    Over a weekend, we found ourselves right smack in the middle of the largest festival of the year and during our time, make some startling discoveries, catch a few breaks, and experience some amazing food, culture, and history along the way.  ...

Gabrielle is back in the podcast chair and this time, we're talking about my favorite owl, the Eastern Screech Owl (Megascops asio).   These little owls may be small, but they are fierce and formidable predators that keep our rodent and insect population in check!  Join us on our back porch "podcast studio" and learn more about our travels this spring, interesting facts and new information about the amazing little sc...

Well, with Gabrielle traveling, I had to do this podcast on my own, but I'm not flying solo, I have a special guest!  Join Dr. Steve Fields and I on location from the Museum of York County for a fabulous exhibit and discussion about the Pleistocene Epoch in the Carolinas.  It's hard to believe that there were mammoths, terror birds, cheetahs, giant porcupine, ground sloths and more, but there were!  Listen as  Dr. Steve d...

We're back!  After a little "hiatus" due to technical issues (love today's technology), we're kicking off 2024 with a new podcast on the fantastic frozen frog.  Wood frogs are small little frogs with some incredible adaptations to allow them a competitive advantage, such as explosive breeding, early mating periods, and the amazing ability to be frozen solid.  Yep, that's right...FROZEN SOLID.  Join Mar...

It's time for another episode, this time from our new podcast studio, aka, our new back porch!  After traipsing for truffles, we go back to all things nature and explore the incredible acrobatic and speed demons, the falcons.  Join Marvin and Gabrielle to learn more about these incredibly specialized birds of prey, falconry, and the bioinspirations and biomimicry that lead to jumps in technology by studying these amazing rapto...

Join Marvin and Gabrielle for a Walk on the Wild Side in the hills of Tuscany!  For this episode, the Bouknights took to the hills to indulge in the tradition of truffle hunting.  We joined an amazing organization to learn about truffles, and how they are traditionally harvested using good ol' fashioned hard work.  Traipsing through the hillside with a trusty and well trained 4-legged companion in search of one of the most sou...

We recently visited Italy for the incredible Slow Food Cheese 2023 festival in Bra, Italy, spending time in the Piemonte region of Italy, located in the northwest of Italy.  Join us on this departure from our nature-based podcasts and experience Part 2 of our visit to Italy that found us traveling by train to the Ligurian Sea and the 5 villages of Cinque Terre!  Once there, they took to the hills of Cinque Terre and hiked to a few ...

It's time for another episode of Walkin' on the Wild Side and this episode is a 3-parter that we wanted to share with you!  Gabrielle and I travelled to Italy for the Interational Cheese Festival in Bra, and then to Cinque Terre, Florence, and the Tuscan Countryside.  For our first episode, we take you into the heart of the largest artisan cheese festival in the world, focusing on the art and passion of Italian food, and ...

With the days getting shorter, and temperatures giving us hints of cooler weather, Fall is right around the corner!  Most are looking forward to the Fall colors but forget about the maturing fruits that provide food for animals preparing for migration, hibernation, etc.  Have you ever stopped to wonder why fruits like persimmon, apples, acorns, and more drop in the fall?  What's the correlation with maturing fruits and winter ...

When Gabrielle and I moved to Chester, SC, we thought the days of seeing the majestic swallowtailed kite soaring in the sky were over, but lo and behold, we have seen them here regularly!  Join us on the porch as we talk about the amazingly acrobatic, striking, and spectacular swallowtailed kite.  Learn about their habits, what they eat, and just the overall mastery of flight these strikingly black and white colored raptors have!

It may sound like a horror movie, but it's true...THEY'RE COMING!  That's right, armadillos are moving north and west and even places like the Appalachian mountains are starting to see these little tanks.  Join Marvin and Gabrielle as they talk about the little armored armadillo, its behaviors and share some little known facts and stories about these curious, interesting, and unusual little mammals.

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It's time for another episode and we dedicate this podcast to our friend Donna down in the Lowcountry!  She adores vultures, so Gabrielle and I dug deep (ew!) and had a front porch chat about the amazing and incredibly necessary turkey and black vultures.  Cleaning up dead animals, stopping disease in its tracks, and providing comic relief, these birds are social, personable, and intelligent.  Get to know Nature's clean u...

A podcast request by Gabrielle!  We were talking about stories behind some plant names and she thought it would be a good podcast, so here we are!  Some plants get their names for obvious reasons, like pink lady slippers or sunflowers, but some have such unique names, it makes you wonder how they got their names.  Join Marvin and Gabrielle on the front porch to play the name game and explore the how's and why's of some in...

Van Halen is the perfect song for jumping spiders, lol!  Join Marvin and Gabrielle on the porch as they talk about the amazing jumping spider, and I'm sure you will be able to tell Marvin is pretty excited!  These little spiders look comical, have cute faces, but in actuality, they are an incredibly complex, amazing, and fascinating.  They have incredible jumping abilities, process complex information with tiny brains, and hav...

Ahhhh....summer!  Nothing reminds us more of summer than the humming, buzzing, and deafening sound of the cicada.  Join Marvin and Gabrielle on the front porch to chat about one of the most amazing, misunderstood, and magical cicadas.  Learn about the life cycle of the insects, how often they appear, and when the next big emergence may take place!

Here's some more interesting information about cicadas:

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