Archives
Header Image: Purple Gallinule ‘Tis the season. Each year around Christmas, birders across the land scatter to assigned sectors before dawn to listen for nocturnal birds and, once the sky has lightened, continue throughout the day counting species and individual birds until “warbler neck” has disabled them completely and they return to their own nests exhausted, hungry, dirty and mumbling about how horrible this year was compared to past years when flocks… Read More
Header Image: Great Blue Heron We married young. Too young, “they” said. With our 20-20 hindsight, Gini and I have determined we married at the exact time the universe had scheduled the event. Our life continues to be infinitely rewarding. In those early days, we had little “spare” money. (Times haven’t changed much!) What we had an abundance of was curiosity – about everything. The military life had its challenges, but a… Read More
Header Image: Immature White Ibis Why does food taste better in the forest? I mean, a boiled egg is a boiled egg. Eaten at the dining table in comfortably conditioned air and protected from natural elements, it is satisfying. Taking a bite of that same hen fruit under a canopy of pine boughs, surrounded by yellow blooms, purple berries, hammering woodpeckers, yammering jays, brown-eyed deer and with a background of a cacophonous… Read More
“Come to the woods, for here is rest.” – John Muir Upstate New York is unbelievably beautiful. In autumn, that beauty is enhanced by trees adorned with leaves of hues we never even knew existed. Walking along a path in November, crisp cold air turning your nose red, dry leaves crunching under foot, a Ring-necked Pheasant in a field springing up suddenly and snow beginning to fall gently to create a soft blanket… Read More
Our Natural Places 