Ferris Jabr

@ferrisjabr.bsky.social

13391 Followers 819 Following

NYT bestselling author of Becoming Earth (Random House) ✵ Contributing Writer, New York Times Magazine ✵ Gardener, baker, naturalist ✵ 🇱🇧🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈 ✵ Surname rhymes with neighbor ✵ https://www.ferrisjabr.com

A sparkling green cuckoo wasp perched on dead vegetation
Four photos of towering rock formations, one of which is fairly isolated just off the shore, and sinuous sand dunes rolling down to the coast.
Four photos featuring a neon green anemone with tentacles splayed out, half buried in sand; small fish called sculpins that look like tiny leopard sharks; craggy white and yellow goose barnacles; and a chiton that resembles a giant pill bug plastered on a rock with armored plates that call to mind ancient creatures like trilobites.
Four closeup photos of tide pools, highlighting plump purple and orange sea stars clinging to rocks at low tide, as well as dozens of contracted chartreuse green sea anemones that look like the round, sagging bases of half-molten wine bottles.
A collage of photos of the Oregon coast, featuring towering isolated rock formations, sinuous sand dunes, and an array of marine life, including sea anemones, barnacles, and sea stars.
Four close up photos of two different perched dragonflies, one red, one blue.
Screenshots from Instagram. Text reads: “My @nytmag feature on the native plant movement is now in print (July 19 issue). Thank you so much to everyone who read and shared the story. It generated a big response: more than 26K likes on IG, more than 700 comments on the NYT website, a lot of reader emails — a truly spirited discussion. Plants provoke our passions. It also proved to be one of the most polarizing subjects I’ve ever covered. Reactions were all over the map. Several big name writers I really respect told me how much they enjoyed and agreed with my essay, which meant a lot. Many readers commented that they appreciated the research, thoughtfulness, and balanced analysis, which helped them navigate this complex subject. But there were also far more extreme reactions, ranging from irate native plant enthusiasts who somehow got the utterly wrong idea that I’m completely against natives, with some even accusing me of being a shill for the horticultural industry, to anti-nativists who claim I was not nearly critical enough of a movement they equate with xenophobia and Puritanism. For the record, I’d like to take a moment to restate and reemphasize a few key points: -I support gardening with native plants. I honestly don’t understand how anyone could read my article in good faith and conclude otherwise. My essay explicitly advocates for prioritizing native species in our gardens to support wildlife and our local ecosystems and concludes with me doing exactly that….
Photo of the quoted New York Times Magazine article on the native plant movement.
A hot pink dahlia with spoke-like scooped petals and a bright yellow center.
A small suspended wooden birdhouse with a chickadee entering, tail still exposed.
A metallic green sweat bee on a pink dahlia.
Screenshot of an automatically suggested search query on Instagram. Text reads: “Search: weird wasps and flies in nature”
Closeup of a Leafcutter bee on a flower. Similar to a honey bee but covered in blonde fuzz.
A white ramekin filled with pink watermelon pudding garnished with chopped pistachios and mint.
Four photos of young black-capped chickadees. Small songbirds with gray plumage and black patches on their heads and necks, surrounding a stripe of white. They are perched on various trees branches.
A white-lined sphinx moth in the author’s garden. Large moth with white and red stripes and patches on grey brown wings.
A collage of plants native to the Pacific Northwest, including California poppy, cascara, Oregon crabapple, serviceberry, currant, Douglas Iris, strawberry, evergreen huckleberry, and geum.
Text reads: "From a deep-time, planetary perspective, there is no distinction between native and non-native. All life is equally Earthly. All extant species are branches of a single ancient trunk. Every newborn island, freshly thawed sheet of bedrock or other novel biome must be populated with creatures whose histories lie elsewhere. On more relatable timelines, however, ecological belonging is a meaningful concept. Coevolution is not some rarefied process that occasionally spits out a few unusually codependent species. All species coevolve in networks in specific places, under certain conditions, over particular periods of time. The relationships they form with one another and their environments define their ecosystems. Such communities are resilient to an extent, but if the most fundamental connections within them collapse too quickly, so will the systems as we know them. Promoting some plants over others does not mean we judge them to be inherently superior or the others to be wicked. Rather, it recognizes that different life forms are connected to each other in different ways. Certain species tend to reinforce and renew the ecosystems in which they take part, whereas others, through no fault of their own — and often because of our own blunders — may imbalance or exhaust them."
Text reads: "Plants deter herbivores with an extensive apothecary of toxins, repellents and digestive inhibitors. In response, insects must develop countermeasures, like the ability to neutralize or sequester a particular class of compounds. The ensuing coevolution results in widespread dietary specialization. Around three-quarters of leaf-eating insect species in any given location on the globe are eating only plants within a single taxonomic family. In many cases, they are restricted to one or a few lineages within that broader group. Insects, in turn, are perhaps the single most vital conduit of energy from plants to animals. Birds illustrate this point especially well. By Tallamy’s reckoning, nearly all terrestrial bird species in North America rely primarily on insects, in particular plump and nutritious caterpillars, to feed their young and maintain breeding populations. An average brood of six to eight chickadees demands 3,000 to 5,000 feedings over the 16 days from hatching to fledging, most of which will be caterpillars, other insects and spiders."
Two collages of photos of native bees arranged in grids. Some are tiny, dark, and glossy; others large and fluffy. Some are green and shiny, others yellow, orange, or red. All photos taken in the author's backyard.
A patched and crispy grass lawn.
Large green caterpillar with yellow legs, black and red spots, and an orange horn, climbing up a plant stem.
Photo of described moth in flight. A very large moth with a plump brown body and long, angled wings. Primarily shades of brown and gray, but striped and accented with white, as well as striking patches of pink on the lower wings.
Photo of me leading two kids on a backyard bug tour
Photo collage of especially strange and unique insects, depicting: Clearwing moth (likely strawberry crown moth) Thick-headed fly Grass-carrying wasp Beewolf Weevil wasps Longhorn beetle
A collage of flowers in pinks, oranges, purples, peaches, and yellows: spiky thistle, star shaped balloon flower, dahlias, and clematis, ruffly marigold, coreopsis, and calendula
Photo of a large bumblebee feeding on lavender. The bee is mostly golden yellow with a black head and tail and prominent black dot on the thorax.
A collage of 16 photos of black-capped chickadees. Each photo depicts a closeup of a single chickadee with prey in their mouth, such as a caterpillar, adult moth, other winged insect, or spider. The chickadees are small songbirds with gray-white plumage and patches of black on their heads and throats.
Photo of a painted lady butterfly with folded wings revealing an intricate marbled mosaic of white, golden brown, and faint blue.
Photo of a bee sleeping in a flower. Their stripey bee butt hangs over the edge of a folded pink petal, as though they collapsed in a floral hammock.
Close up photo of a minuscule cuckoo wasp with a bumpy, glittering green body, folded wings, long antennae, and smooth black eyes, perched on a yellow flower. It’s reminiscent of iridescent jewel beetles from the tropics.
A fluffy leafcutter bee with gray fur and black and white stripes
A small bee that looks more like a wasp, with a pointy abdomen and bold black and white stripes, perched on a flat yellow flower.
Photo of a banded humpback fly (Psilodera fasciata), an unusual fly from South Africa that has an exceptionally small head and disproportionately large and bulbous body. The head is almost completely devoted to the eyes, which look like a pair of glossy black beans. The thorax is gray and fuzzy. And the plump abdomen features prominent black and white stripes, evoking a bumblebee. The bee is perched delicately on vegetation, with a grace and lightness that defies their overall comic heft. They do not look like a typical biological bee so much as a cartoon bee brought to life.
Photo of a neglected, crispy grass lawn in a sunny rectangular backyard bordered by a wooden fence.
A kaleidoscopic collage of 25 native bees arranged into a 5 x 5 grid. Each square has a letter corresponding to the IDs below. IDs: a. Snow miner bee (Andrena nivalis) b. Brown-belted bumblebee (Bombus griseocollis) c. Small carpenter bee (Ceratina sp.) d. Longhorn bee (Melissodes sp.) e. Sitka bumblebee (Bombus sitkensis) f. Fuzzy-horned bumblebee (Bombus mixtus) g. Black-tailed bumblebee, aka orange-rumped bumblebee (Bombus melanopygus) h. Mystery Bee! Likely a mason bee. Possibly Osmia or Hoplitis sp. i. Nomad bee. Likely black and yellow nomad bee (Nomada luteoloides) j. California bumblebee (Bombus californicus) k. Either white-shouldered bumblebee (Bombus appositus) or California bumblebee l. Metallic green sweat bee (Agapostemon sp.) m. Long-horned bee (Melissodes sp.) n. Sweat bee (Lasioglossum sp.) o. Yellow-faced bumblebee (Bombus vosnesenskii) p. Mining bee (Andrena) q. Nomad bee (Nomada sp.) r. Long-horned bee (Eucera sp.) s. Mason bee (Osmia sp.) t. Nomad bee (Nomada sp.) u. Bicolored striped sweat bee (Agapostemon virescens) v. Sharptail bee (Coelioxys) w. Nevada bumblebee (Bombus nevadensis) x. Megachile perihirta (Western leafcutter bee) y. Furrow bee (Halictus sp.)
Same bushtit photos arranged in a row
Collage of four photos of extra fluffy bushtits, petite gray birds with short sharp beaks, long tails, and adorably plump bodies.
Collage of two photos of a hummingbird hovering above and sipping from a luscious red rose.
Photo of described cake. Round, two layers, coated in white frosting and decorated with fresh raspberries and pink frosting stars.
A large native bumble bee with yellow and black stripes on her thorax and coppery orange stripes on her abdomen feeding on white jasmine flowers.
Photo of a downy woodpecker climbing up a branch. A medium sized woodpecker with a light gray chest, small red cap, and black plumage with white speckles.
Photo of an Anna’s hummingbird with a magenta head hovering near some pink salvia
Photo of a white-bowed smoothing, a remarkably flat-bodied hover fly with a black body, white stripes, and bulbous head, hovering towards a leaf, wings ablur
Three small tarts filled with pastry cream, red currants, and strawberries
Photo of a small wool carder bee gathering plant fuzz into a ball of fluff in a garden in Portland, Oregon. She is smaller than a honeybee, mostly black with petite yellow stripes, and orange legs. She is perched on a fuzzy green plant stem. The ball of fluff is clasped between her legs.
Photo of a native bumblebee, fluffy with classic broad black and yellow stripes and pollen baskets on her legs. Her long proboscis (tongue) is extended, reminiscent of an elephant’s trunk.
A series of photos of scrub jays, birds with mostly blue plumage on their backs and tails and mostly gray underneath. Here, a parent feeds a fledgling perched on the same branch. The fledglings have more pink on their mouths and are softer and fuzzier overall, as if they’ve just been bathed and blow dried.
Short video montage composed of clips of black-capped chickadees flying in and out of a suspended wooden bird house, bringing insects to their nestlings.
Two urban coyotes lounging on their sides in a sunny patch of grass. Light gray fur mottled with brown; pale undersides. They look very much like dogs in someone’s yard.
A pair of black-capped chickadees perched on a branch share a grub, a string of slime stretched between their beaks, recalling the famous spaghetti scene from Disney's 'Lady and the Tramp'
Two black-capped chickadee parents perched on a branch. Small songbirds with gray plumage, black heads and throats, and bands of white across their cheeks. One has a grub in their beak.
A raccoon resting on the branch of a cherry tree, face smushed against bark, one arm dangling lazily in the air.
Two rival hummingbirds facing off. A smaller, rusty colored bird in flight on the left, wings splayed back. A larger, gray bird on the right, perched on a branch. Their slender, sword-like beaks pointed right at each other.
A rufous hummingbird perched on a vine, looking to their left. Dark wings with a mix of glittering green and rusty plumage.
A glittering green sweat bee on a small flat blue flower.