The Ring-necked Pheasant, Phasianus colchicus, is a handsome-looking chap. This member of the grouse family (Phasianidae) has iridescent copper-gold plumage with a long tail – brown with black markings. He is aptly named due to the white ring around his neck. He also sports teal-colored feathers on his head as well as a red sideways…
Category Archives: Natural History
Sunday There was a crispness that you could walk right into – and I did. The cold air caught in my throat and I swallowed winter. The ice glistened in a sunny day that couldn’t quite touch the chill. As I walked my ears were met with the tales chickadees tell one another in the…
“Dee-dee-dee” I call. My chickadee neighbors respond, “Dee-dee-dee.” They flitter in as they chatter in happy call and response. I can only imagine they are saying something to the effect of: “The Seed Lady is back; breakfast is served.” I feel like Giselle from that film Enchanted. She calls out “ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah” and from all…
Household in the woods. When I was an environmental educator at Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center in Brattleboro, Vermont, there was a game I played with students to teach awareness. I called it “Household in the Woods”. Back in early 1990s when I was joining the environmental education field, I learned the activity as “The Unnatural…
As we fall into autumn, mesmerized by the colorful leaves spinning in the breeze and sashaying their way to the ground, be watchful of nannies and witches, for this is their season too – trailside surprises that can delight, nourish and heal. There are some fruits and flowers in our New England woods and fields…
Mmmmm! Wild Concord Grapes! Can you smell them? Their scent on the breeze, so alluring, indicates the shift in season, heralding in fall. I am clambering up an old spruce tree at a neighbor’s house, teetering on a wobbly branch, standing up on my tip toes, my arms reaching up into the vines. Fingertips like…
I have been an environmentalist since I was a teenager. And since college, I have been teaching and sharing about the natural world. I recognized that it is my life’s work. After college, when I went to work for an environmental center in New York State, I had already formed the opinion against hunters. I…
