A few years ago on a cold winter night, Daisy, my yellow Lab, and I took a walk in the woods after a snow storm. Daisy enjoyed plowing through the ankle-deep snow with her nose. At one point she wallowed in the snow the way she rolls in mud holes in the spring. As we [...]
To the uninitiated, the yellow-bellied sapsucker sounds like a mythical creature. “Where is it in the field guide?” they ask. “Right next to the “bleary-eyed bedthrasher?” “No,” I answer. “It’s a woodpecker.” Four There are actually four species of sapsuckers in North America, but only the yellow-belly is found here in the east. Williamson’s, red-breasted, [...]
If you’ve seen or heard unfamiliar birds recently, it’s probably not your imagination. The mystery bird is about the size of a white-throated sparrow and is found primarily in groves of evergreens — spruce, hemlock and pine trees. Males are red with dark wings; females are drab olive-gray. Both sexes have two bold white bars [...]
With the onset of winter comes the threat of hypothermia — the dangerous lowering of the human body’s temperature. As the number one killer of outdoor enthusiasts, everyone should understand the circumstances under which hypothermia occurs and its symptoms. Mild weather Surprisingly, however, hypothermia can occur even during relatively mild weather. In fact, most cases [...]
On the afternoon of Dec. 26, the thermometer on the back porch read 73 degrees. Carolina wrens, cardinals and white-throated sparrows sang as if spring had replaced winter. A few weeks earlier, the morning temperature had plunged to four degrees. In between we’ve had several measurable snow falls and school delays. As I write this [...]
Each holiday season I recommend books and other gifts that might interest readers. Today I give a gift to you — a series of Web sites chock full of valuable information that nature lovers will appreciate. And they’re free. If you don’t have Internet access at home, visit your local public library. http://digital.library.pitt.edu/a/audubon The University [...]
It was the night before Christmas about 15 years ago. Nora was barely 10, and Emma was still dreaming of kindergarten. We had just gotten home from a Christmas Eve church service. About two inches of snow had fallen the day before, and it was cold, about 25 degrees, so a white Christmas seemed assured. [...]
If you’ve got some avid readers on your holiday gift list, here are some titles I enthusiastically recommend. The Owl and the Woodpecker: Encounters with America’s Most Iconic Birds by Paul Bannick (2008, $24.95, Mountaineers Books) is my book of the year. Stunningly illustrated with more than 130 color photographs by the author, this book [...]
Last week as I traveled across the southern tier of New York, V-shaped skeins of Canada geese crossed the sky from north to south. It was a vintage November day — cold, gray and damp. At a rest stop near Jamestown, another flock caught my eye. But these birds were bigger and pure white. Tundra [...]
A few days ago, while listening to Mike Tirico and Scott Van Pelt on ESPN radio, Van Pelt broke out laughing in near hysteria. Tirico asked him to explain himself. It turned out Van Pelt was broadcasting from his home, and he was watching a bird feeder as he worked. The distraction was a squirrel [...]
