The hardy birds that spend winters in Maine rely on a unique set of skills and behaviors to survive. Take, for example, the mixed winter flocks now at your feeders. Birds that normally are highly territorial and compete fiercely for food and nest sites during the spring, change their behavior and can be found […]

  Every fall I’m on the lookout for winterberry, a shrub that belongs to the holly family. It grows wild in wet and swampy places. At North Pond there is one astounding bush that is full of so many berries that it’s almost impossible to see the underlying branches even when they’re full of leaves. […]

“In-school, hybrid, remote…” a collaborative article on this region’s school districts, appeared in the Citizen on November 26. It raises interesting issues. SAD 44 has done well in keeping young people learning, in school or at home. Absenteeism and truancy rates, rising elsewhere, remain stable here. Though both rates mean that students aren’t in school, […]

  My friend Ruthie is becoming a top birder in Bethel. While on a walk with her parents, she spotted a flock of Evening Grosbeaks eating cherries in trees on Mason Street. Ruthie noticed three other birds among the bright yellow Evening Grosbeaks. The birds were the same size as the other grosbeaks but with […]

History helps us understand why we are what we are. Local history plays a big part in this. Women, men, and children, farmers and lumberjacks, factory hands and homemakers, doctors, ministers and lawyers, merchants, hotel-keepers, hunting and fishing guides and lots of tourists have shaped Bethel, and how we live here. So have mill streams […]

I was putting old chandelier crystals on my little Norfolk Island pine as I do every year around this time of year to honor all evergreens. It was almost November. I recalled a childhood experience … my little brother and I used to clink the beveled crystal pieces together in order to hear the music […]

  When late migrants are leaving for warmer climates, my focus starts to shift to a group of birds sometimes referred to as “winter finches”. Winter finches are a loose group that live year-round in the boreal forests of the north. They do not migrate north and south. Instead, they roam like nomads through the boreal […]