Daylight Savings Time: No, Thanks!
I have a cause I’m deeply committed to. I really get quite emotional about it—just ask my family. And I’m asking for your support. I’m asking for your vote. And a sizable monetary donation wouldn’t hurt, either. My cause is this: Daylight Savings Time. I’m against it. It’s a hoax. A giant prank played on us by the powers that be. We’re all fooled into thinking we get an extra hour of daylight. It’s amazing, right?—the sun slows in its descent, bounces back up into the sky, and gives us a whole extra hour of sunshine. Only, of course, we all know it doesn’t. We just fiddle with the clocks and...
Read MoreCrows: Love in the City
There are many romantic things to do in the city of Amsterdam, NY, on Valentine’s Day. You could have dinner at a nice restaurant. Enjoy a hot fudge sundae at Fariello’s. Perhaps even stroll by the river to watch the full moon rising. Or you could count crows. Watching big black birds swirling eerily over the city may seem like a pastime better suited to Halloween than Valentine’s Day, but winter is when the crows are in town. On February 14, my husband and I did the dinner and the sundae, but first we shared our Valentine celebration with the crows. We got to our observation point early, to...
Read MoreCrows in the City: Should We Run?
More and more, cities across the US are being discovered by crows as the perfect place for a slumber party. Crows love to roost in cities on winter nights. And the crows congregate in vast numbers–some roosts are made up of hundreds of thousands of birds. They’re impossible to ignore. When twenty thousand birds are swooping over your house, it can make you a little…well…nervous. Every time I see dark clouds of crows swirling overhead I’m reminded–who could not be?–of the movie. The movie. You know the one I mean, right? Admit it, the thought crosses your mind every time you see a flock of...
Read MoreGoldenrod: Fill Up the Feeders
Big winter storm! For once the weather hysterics were right, and we got a lot of snow, even more than they threatened. A winter wonderland which is great for kids (tough luck it’s on a Sunday, guys, could have been a snow day…). Great for skiiers. Great, in fact, for all snow lovers, including mice, red squirrels and meadow voles who can tunnel safely beneath the drifts and avoid predators. But deep snow is tough on some types of wildlife. If the seeds are all hidden underneath a blanket of white, what’s a bird to do? Looks like it’s shaping up to be a long cold...
Read MoreCattails: Winter Warmth
Cattails in a winter marsh, with a skim of ice on the water. This chilly picture seems to be the very essence of cold. But actually this is an image of potential warmth. You’ve seen cattail seed heads, I’m sure, when they’re just ripe–they look like a brown velvet hot dog impaled on a stick. Just one of those spikes can hold an unbelievable number of seeds–somewhere in the vicinity of a quarter of a million seeds on each stalk. Each individual seed is a tiny dot, almost invisible, attached to a little cluster of fluff, which acts as a parachute so the seeds can...
Read MoreQueen Anne’s Lace: Re-opening for Business
Queen Anne’s lace really stands out in a crowd when it’s in bloom. The big umbrella-shaped white flowers are hard to miss. But when fall comes, the plant closes up shop. The round flower head clenches itself up like a fist and forms a tight brown clump sometimes known as a “bird’s-nest.” It’s not a nest for birds, it’s more of a restaurant, since the birds come and check out the clumps for insects and spiders that might be hiding inside. Then, the amazing part–the Queen Anne’s lace flower, apparently dead, stiff and dried-up, re-opens. It...
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