The Wild Things
are Everywhere
A nature-loving blogger in Boston sets out to discover one new
species in the city every day BY KIERA BUTLER
nature isn’t the first thing on most citydwellers’ minds. When there are buildings,
cars, and people to look at, the weeds beside
a parking lot can seem awfully insignificant.
But Jef Taylor has spent the past decade
looking beyond the urban fracas to find out
where beings hide—and he’s learned some
interesting things along the way.
By day, 37-year-old Taylor works as a wildlife
care assistant at a nature center. But evenings
34 | Feb/Mar/07 plentymag.com
and weekends, he scours the streets, parks,
and riverbanks of Boston, and writes about his
findings in his blog, Urban Pantheist (urbpan.
livejournal.com). Taylor has discovered that he’s
not the only one who finds sidewalk slugs and
house sparrows interesting: He estimates that
about 500 people read the blog daily, and even
more check in regularly.
The project was born in the mid-’90s. Fresh
out of art school, Taylor rediscovered an old cu-
riosity about the natural world, and he decided
to publish a ’zine about what he was learning.
The first issue, a few photocopied pages stapled
together, had articles about pigeons, house centipedes, and the mice who lived in the subway
tracks at Boston’s Park Street station. Over the
next several years, Taylor published six issues,
and developed a small but loyal readership.
Then, in 2002, Taylor took Urban Pantheist online. Blogging made it easy for Taylor
to record his daily experiences in the natural
world, but the real advantage was his blog’s
capacity for showing photos. Describing a
slime mold was good—but showing readers
a picture of that particular slime mold, in all
its oozing glory, was even better.
Last year, Taylor’s New Year’s resolution
was to blog about a different living thing in
the city each day. He called his plan the 365
Urban Species. As the year wore on, more
and more entries accumulated. Tufted
titmouse. Mute swan. American dog tick.
More readers began visiting Urban Pantheist
to let Taylor know about plants and animals
they’d spotted. At press time, Taylor was on
pace to meet his goal. He’s categorized and
cross-referenced his entries, and the result is
an ever-growing database of city wildlife—
something of an urban field guide.
In his search, Taylor has found it helpful to
remember that living things are messy, and that
they take root without regard for the intended
purpose of the space they occupy. Species #309
is Lycopersicon esculentum, a common tomato
plant, which Taylor found growing in a parking
lot behind a business on a busy street. “This
plant’s location suggests to me that it grew from
discarded food,” writes Taylor. “A slice of tomato picked out of a sandwich and tossed into
the bushes seems to have grown into a plant.”
Life in the city, Taylor has learned, is all
around. You’ll find it bursting up through
sidewalk cracks, clinging to drain pipes, and
skulking at the edges of abandoned lots—if you
just take the time to look for it. ■
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY ALEXIS BYWATER
F O R WAR D TH I N K I N G