From the monthly archives:

January 2010

Short-eared Owls: The Best Gig in Town

January 27, 2010

Doran Road (Lima, NY) is my favorite place to bird in winter. The undulating country road dead ends into a spectacular 240-degree vista of the Finger Lakes. I can see Bristol ski mountain in the distance.
I love taking friends and guests down to Doran Road, especially non-birders. I always hope that one or more wicked-faced owls [...]

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Feeding Chickadees by Hand and Head!

January 17, 2010

Our local park here in Rochester, NY (Mendon Ponds Park) has a songbird trail where chickadees, titmice, and even nuthatches gather to eat from the hands of chubby-palmed children and wistful adults.

We visited Saturday in order to get the family outdoors on the first sunny day we’d had in a long time. Why stop at the hand? thought my husband, and offered his balding pate as a serving platter of black oil sunflower seeds.

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Kids in Nature: Proud Warriors of Chimney Bluffs

January 11, 2010

This essay, which I first wrote in 2007 not long after I moved to Rochester, NY, seemed worthy of resurrection after my last post about kids in nature.
I wasn’t sure whether to title this post: Be Careful What You Wish For or, Believe in the Law of Attraction. So I decided to leave it up [...]

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Our Mission: Get More People “Out There” With Nature

January 8, 2010

I recently renewed contact with a long-lost friend who said “What you do [for a living] sounds so interesting. Getting out there with nature.”
It was a kind, thoughtful comment. But I thought, how funny.
Getting “out there” with nature.
As if I and nature were not one in the same, were not cut from the same [...]

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Green Jay: a Caribbean Creamsicle

January 6, 2010

I never tire of examining the plumage of Green Jays…the blacks and blues, the greens and yellows along with their chartreuse sibling. When I peer at them long enough, I see ocean beaches. I see Caribbean creamsicles, a coral reef with wings. And this makes my eyes melt.

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Moment of Zen: Bluebird Pair Feeding Young

January 3, 2010

At some point, the lush, green landscape around me turned cold and barren. The mercury now hovers in the single digits. A frosty white coating buries the trunk of every tree. The wind yawns and howls right through the single pane windows of this 1880s Victorian. With no fireplace to warm my tootsies by, I turn [...]

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