-
Spring rambling
We took another jaunt to Ithaca on Saturday. We didn’t see as much of the hawks featured in the nest cam this time, though we did look for Ezra hunting. We saw some…
-
Pontius Pileated and other woodland wonders
Finally some sun! The girls and I took advantage of it with a walk in the woods this morning. First we had to reach an agreement on where to go, and one daughter…
-
Heronry and Ornithology Field Trip
We have a heronry — a community of great blue heron nests — on the Susquehanna River not far from us. My husband and the girls and I have visited a couple of…
-
Herons
Cornell has a second nest-cam up, this one of a great blue heron nest that’s viewable from their building. It’s incredible that such a large, gangly bird starts as such a tiny egg!…
-
Prospective Homeowners
We gave my older daughter a chickadee house for her birthday. We hung it on a maple outside the front window and have been enjoying watching the birds check it out. The first…
-
Spring Woods
We took a walk to the vernal pool, and this time we saw it coming to life. The surface was alive with little plopping sounds and shivers. There were any number of these…
-
Morning Chorister
The buds on the water maple next door are swollen so that they look, as Younger Daughter says, like raspberries. Up high among them, a cardinal likes to perch around lunchtime and sing…
-
Mystery Bird
I woke this morning thinking of a birdsong, heard way back in July. Maybe it’s because I’ve read references to the warblers in two different books lately. Or maybe it’s because it was…
-
Beads on a String: Taking Stock
Nature study is, despite all discussions and perversions, a study of nature; it consists of simple, truthful observations that may, like beads on a string, finally be threaded upon the understanding and thus…
-
Winter Walking: Tracks and Birds
Last week, driving home from a walk at a winter-frosted marsh, we saw this: See it? Right smack dab in the middle, screened by branches? It’s an eagle! We stopped the car, got…
