I can never settle on the best way to describe the Hooded Merganser. You know the old saying, “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.” Well, mergansers looks a lot like a duck and swims like a duck, but that’s where it stops. Mergansers, there are […]

When I awaken before dawn each morning I stay in bed to listen to the first flute-like calls of the Hermit Thrush that nests every year down by my brook. Its poignant melancholy song begins with a single high note that ascends in an upward spiral, and for me it is probably the most beautiful […]

I just picked the first violet blue flowers of the hairy vetch that was creeping along the road, its ladder like leaves following curling spirals. I noticed that a few plants had already found purchase on lupine spires; in my garden the delicate leaves and tendrils of the vine are just beginning their spiral ascent […]

In this beautiful Maine June, just where are we on COVID-19 protection? I don’t know about you, but I find this transition period quite confusing! Some areas of our lives seem to be opening up, but much is still completely unpredictable. We are all completely fed up with the 3-month suspension of normal activities and […]

  A bird went limping across the cow pasture. I ran after it. When I got closer, it fluttered away dragging a wing. I was a child and distressed by the bird that was apparently injured. I tried again to catch it but every time I got close, it managed to scurry away. All the […]

John James Audubon is famous for documenting and painting the birds of North America during our country’s early history. Legend has it that he only saw the Chestnut-sided Warbler twice in his life. It’s believed that the reason this could have been true is because the Chestnut-sided Warbler (photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren)  is […]