Late last September, I saw the first Northern flicker of the season passing through my overgrown field in Maine. His undulating flight is always a give away as is the brilliant yellow splash of his under-wings and his sharp staccato call. For the next couple of weeks these birds hunted on the ground and graced […]

With the holidays over and ski season in full swing, it’s time for the Prime Time Ski Club column to resume. A few of our members have been skiing daily since the first trail opened in October and several have already clocked quite a few ski days in December. The club’s first pot luck dinner […]

A steady tooting was coming from up ahead in the dark woods. Old woodsmen would have said it sounded like someone filing a saw blade. It was 10 pm at night and although I’d never heard a saw being filed, I knew that wasn’t it. The sound was a recording of the Northern Saw-whet Owl, […]

For two months I have been on alert listening for the calls of the Sand hill cranes as they continue their migration south. Last year a good number of cranes spent the winter here in Abiquiu landing in the neighboring field to find food, and roosting down by the river in the riffles… Seeing and […]

This time of year we are occasionally visited by an owl that calls the Arctic its home. Lemming populations explode in some summers. When they do, Snowy Owls (photo by David Syzdek) are able to produce large numbers of owlets. When these youngsters leave the nest, they must find their own territories. The first winter […]

If you’ve read any of these articles over the past year, you’ve probably noticed I like birds. Well, that may be an understatement. I’m actually obsessed. I watch birds. I read about birds. My day dreams involve birds. When I imagine an ideal vacation, it usually revolves around what birds I might be able to […]

Every morning when I walk to the river I see newly gnawed beaver sticks lapping the shore and remember the beaver family I once knew so well… A wide slow moving stream meandered its way to the sea below my house in Andover and beavers had made a solid dam and erected a domed lodge […]

Last summer I noticed that at least one mink was running past the south window that overlooks the brook on a semi – regular basis. Although I assumed the adult mink was hunting I never determined what it was that this sleek 20 inch long furry brown animal was after. Although I frequently meet mink […]

The Bethel area serves as a gateway to 11 million acres that Sally Stockwell of Maine Audubon once described as, “Part of the largest intact temperate forest in North America and perhaps the world.” We enjoy a wild and diverse habitat, while news about the collapse of the natural world seems to come on a […]

Scientists caution us not to anthropomorphize animals and birds. Anthropomorphize means to give human traits to non-humans. Avoiding anthropomorphisms help scientists resist making assumptions about how other creatures think, feel and act. The problem? It is human nature to do just the opposite. We imagine, for instance, that blue birds are the essence of happiness. […]