• Nature Study

    Pond-erings

    When the girls and I visited the pond at the university nature preserve earlier this week, a man was wading in the water, picking up trash. A woman was helping him, pointing out…

  • Nature Study

    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!…

  • Nature Study

    First day of spring

    We went for a walk at our favorite wetland preserve to see what we could see on this first day of spring — at least, according to the calendar. I guess it depends…

  • Miscellany

    Weekend sights

    The girls and I took a walk in the snow the other day. Now I have shots of this path, which my youngest calls the tree tunnel, in three of the four seasons.…

  • Nature Study,  Picture Books

    Wetland walk

    We went to the beaver pond to investigate the beaver-gnawed tree we’ve been observing and found it felled. At several points they have already removed branches and carried them away, and they’ve begun…

  • Nature Study

    A bit about beavers

    We’ve been observing the beaver activity at a nearby wetland lately. Their lodge is not too far out on the pond, surrounded by water. In the summer we would see turtles sunning themselves…

  • Parenting

    Time

    When I was a child — 5 or 6 — my dad got me up early one morning when we were vacationing in the Adirondacks. I wore my maroon hooded sweatshirt. First, we…