On the Road
Thanks once again to Wells Horton for another lovely photograph. http://wells-horton.smugmug.com/ “The Road,” as Bilbo Baggins often remarked, “goes on and on, down from the door where it began.” In the words of J.R. R. Tolkien: “He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. ‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,’ he used to say. ‘You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet,...
Read MoreThin-leaved Coneflower: What’s in a Name?
A cold and dreary winter field. In summer it’s a green and golden wildflower meadow. In winter it’s brown stalks. Peeking out from under this abandoned piece of haying equipment (I think it’s a baler?) is a not-very-well-known wildflower. In summer it looks a lot like a daisy, but with golden-yellow rays surrounding a dark “eye” center. Nope, not a Black-eyed Susan. This is one of Susan’s cousins, though, in the Rudbeckia family. Three-Lobed Coneflower, or Thin-Leaved Coneflower, or Three-Leaved Coneflower, depending on which field guide you use....
Read MoreFrost on the Sky
The sky in February. Can’t seem to make up its mind. Clouds racing along, shoved by the sub-zero winds high above us. Is it clearing? Clouding up? Blizzard? Flurry? Even the Weather Channel doesn’t know. One minute, spring coming. The next minute, lots of winter left. Some days the sky is as gray as a wall of cement. Other days, as blue as a June noon. Ouch. When searching for metaphors, Robert Frost, poet and patron saint of nature observers, said it better. He would have been a wonderful blogger–he went out every day and wrote down his thoughts on mud puddles and stumps...
Read MoreMy Friend Bud
Under the snow, the leaves of spring are waiting. Thanks to Wells Horton for capturing this photo. http://wells-horton.smugmug.com/ One of my naturalist friends, Glenn Humphrey, likes to teach kids about “my friend Bud.” Buds, in strict botanic terminology, are those little brown bumps on the ends of twigs that no one ever notices. Until one fine day, when the little bumps burst open and reveal the leaves and blossoms of spring we’re all panting for. As miraculous as a chick hatching out of its shell. But when did Bud start incubating those baby leaves? Last spring. At the...
Read MoreTo Feed a Mockingbird
Another day, another parking lot. Now this might not look like a National Park or anything. But I drove into this parking lot in Guilderland, NY the other day, parked, and sat there thinking about nothing in particular for a minute. And in sixty seconds flat I had observed three gray squirrels, a flock of starlings, and a mockingbird. I’m no great birder, but I’m sure it was a mockingbird—big gray bird, long graceful tail, and a white flash under the wings as it flew into the bushes. Mockingbirds increasingly winter here in New York State, and they love thickets and scrub and berries....
Read MoreCold Winter Day
A cold day today. Snow, and then sunshine that seems colder than the snow. A hard day for chickadees and goldfinches and redpolls and nuthatches and such to keep warm. Good thing my backyard has a lot of birdfeeders in it. Lots of food for feathered friends. What, you don’t see the birdfeeders? I mean all those goldenrods, asters, dogwoods, grasses–all the shrubby, seedy, weedy stuff we haven’t mowed in…gosh, we haven’t mowed this back field in probably ten years. Bird restaurant.
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