Tag Archives: Winter
“Red and green, together be seen, in the dark times of the year. Red and green, together be seen, to bring us hope and cheer.” Even though the deciduous trees have shed their leaves and the herbaceous plants have died back to their roots and/or sent out their hopes and dreams for future generations in…
Weasels, otter, and mink, oh my! The Mustelidae is a family that includes living slinkys and sliders: the long-tailed weasel (Mustela frenata), ermine or short-tailed weasel (Mustela erminea), least weasel (Mustela nivalis), mink (Mustela vison), and river otter (Lutra canadensis). These slender, long-bodied, short-legged mammals have a distinct bounding track pattern, which can be punctuated,…
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…
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…
BRR! It’s cold out there! How do the “wiuts” – the wild ones – survive the winter? Time for a winter ecology lesson – a study of relationships among living organisms during the coldest season of the year and how they relate to their environment during this season. To our New England flora, winter is…
Hearken to Avalon 