Sometimes when I think about the old ones who have gone before us, I consider what they’ve left behind – stone walls meandering through the woods, apple trees with forests growing up around them, juniper bushes in the old fields, maples trees like sentinels lining backcountry roads, unruly flower beds that have taken on a…
Category Archives: Natural History
Humans are Part of Nature On a scientific level I think many of us humans have come to recognize that we are part of Nature; that we exist only because the circumstances meet the needs of oxygen-based lifeforms. But on so many other levels we consider Nature separate – either wilderness to protect from us…
The first Saturday in March has proven to be perfect tracking weather. The snow is firm enough so that lighter animals (i.e., non-humans) are not punching through too deeply, but just enough to leave clear prints. One can see the clear X in the four-digit print of the red fox and the five-digit prints of…
Raucous Raptors As I traversed the slippery driveway to the mailbox on the night of February 15th I heard the distinct hooting of one of the resident Barred Owls. Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo; hoo-hoo-hoo-hoowah-wah. Ah, and so it has begun. The nightly serenating has commenced as the male woos his lady. Courtship takes place in February and behavior…
A gunshot echoes from the silence as I breathe in the dawn. If my ears could perk and swivel like a deer, I would alert myself to the source of the sound. It’s November and then December – hunting season in the Hilltowns. Echoing shots have become such a familiar sound to me and I…
I would like you to reach back in time and give thanks to the blue-green bacteria who initiated the masses by breathing volatile oxygen, for without them we could not be here. And let us then give thanks to the plants who recognized that the sun is food, and in their breath, then give us…
Don’t think for a moment that I don’t love cats. I do! I have two of my own little loves. And… Bustle Recently a long-haired white cat with a black-and-white bustle tail showed up in our neighborhood. We know not whence this bedraggled beauty arrived but s/he is here wandering and bustling about. I have…
