Field and Swamp: Animals and Their Habitats

A word to the wise: the little pictures on this site are thumbnails, i.e., if you click on any of them, you will see a much bigger version of that picture. 

Why visit this wildlife photos website?

No, I'm not a biology professor or even someone who hangs out with professors (although I'd like to, of course!)  I don't pretend to be a credentialed expert on zoology or botany or environmental science.  I grew up in rural areas and come across as kind of "hayseed" in the highly intellectual area where I live.  So how could my nature website be worth visiting?

For one thing, this website has a lot of first-hand information.  Every animal or plant photo is accompanied with the place and date of sighting, and sometimes the habitat description.  You won't find generalizations about when and where these organisms show up; you'll see the actual data.  You won't be told that cockroaches sometimes eat poisonous mushrooms; you'll see a photo of one doing just that.  A lot of information is organized by location or time of year on some pages, although all of the animals and plants are organized according to taxonomic classification, most often with one order to a web page.  So you can choose between strictly biological information and environmental data.  It does help if you live in Piedmont North Carolina, where most of the photos were taken.

Also, I'm not completely unlearned.  I was a professional programmer for 20 years and earned 39 graduate credit hours (probably an all-time record!) toward an uncompleted M.S. in industrial engineering with an emphasis on information system design.   That taught me how to design a website that contained a great deal of information but made it easy for people from a variety of backgrounds to find their way to what they needed to know within it as fast as possible.  It's a challenge to design a system that enables users with very little knowledge of zoology or botany to figure out the genus and species of an animal or plant without clicking hundreds of links or learning mountains of jargon.  Sometimes, of course, that can't be done: for example, you have to dissect some animals to determine their species definitively.  But the species can be identified from a photo in many cases, and the genus or family in many more.

Still in all, nobody's perfect, at least outside their area of expertise.  Even academics have very narrow areas of concentration.  It's up to you, the user, to validate what you've learned.  That means having confirming the correctness of the knowledge you've been offered by looking it up in authoritative sources.  That can mean .edu or .gov websites, peer-reviewed journal articles, or a variety of other sources with good word-of-mouth reputations.  I have my own favorites on the Acknowledgements and References Page.  In any case, you'll have to make some judgment calls on the way.

Why not go to the authoritative sources right away?   They typically have two problems: 1) they require the user to have a great deal of subject knowledge already and 2) they are very narrow in focus.  Finding your way to an authoritative source that can answer your particular question can be difficult and time-consuming in itself.   This website is designed to help you take that first step.  If it leads you astray, please contact us and explain what needs to be fixed.

NOTE: This site is a tribute to the successful work of conservationists throughout North Carolina, including those operating state parks, maintaining university-owned gardens and those involved in nature conservancy efforts.  They have ensured an abundance of wildlife even in at least one fairly large city (Durham, NC) and have made it possible for natural habitats housing  animals of even relatively rare species to be found within the limits of that city and in neighboring areas. 

Disclaimer:  This website is the product of an independent naturalist, with the occasional volunteered help of several professional field biologists and others with demonstrated expertise in the field.  Although I welcome such help when it is volunteered, I have relied mainly on reference books and visits to other websites.  This site lists my sources of information, both on relevant pages and on the Acknowledgements and References Page.  I take full responsibility for any errors and make no guarantees of correctness of information.  I invite all visitors to my website to inform me of any presented facts needing correction; I make changes requested by authorities in relevant fields according to my best understanding of what they wish.  I cannot, however, take responsibility for making changes that have not been requested.  Taxonomic classifications presented are not meant to represent all known classifications, or to imply that all possible classifications have been done.  This website is in a constant process of evolution and represents an ongoing learning process.  Its content is still expanding and its structure is undergoing changes.   Anthropomorphic interpretations of animal behavior are made mostly about birds and are meant strictly for the amusement of the site visitor.