Marcia Bonta

  • Mindful Creatures

    Scientists interested in cognitive ethology have begun to study learning in vertebrate and invertebrate animals, bolstered by the work of neurobiologists, who have discovered that any animal with loops between thalamus and forebrain is a conscious thinker. Birds, mammals, and reptiles all have such loops.

  • Surprise Visitor

    Sometimes we have unexpected visitors to our mountain dooryard. Last December 6, shortly after lunch, my husband, Bruce, stepped outside on our veranda. That was when a mink bounded past almost at his feet and down into the lilac shrubs next to the house. “I think I just saw a mink,” Bruce shouted to me…

  • Putting Up the Feeders

    I only put the feeders out as early as November because I am a veteran Project FeederWatch participant, having signed on for this citizen science project, developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the first year it was offered. Last fall was its and my 26th season, and it began on November 10.

  • Chickarees

    Having moved from Maine, where we had lived in the country for five years and hiked in our mixed conifer woods filled with scolding red squirrels, I had no idea that central Pennsylvania had marginal habitat for them. But over our 41 years here, after the two attic squirrels were eliminated, I had had only…

  • Eastern Wood-Pewees

    During warm August days most songbirds are quiet. They are molting and stay hidden from potential enemies. But the eastern wood-pewee drawls his plaintive “pee-ah-wee” song. He, it turns out, doesn’t molt until after he migrates. Without his songs, our August forest would be almost silent.

  • White-Crowned Sparrows

    The white-crowned sparrows must be wondering about our strange weather. Last October, near the end of their fall migration, they were met here by a heavy snowstorm. For the first time I can remember, we even had a white-crown at our feeder area from October 31 through November 2. Usually, I see them during their…

  • Visit from a Hairy-tailed Mole

    Here’s the video our son Dave made of our hairy-tailed mole. Listen for a cardinal cheering, the calls of eastern wood-pewees and eastern towhees, train whistles, and a loud plane going over as well as vehicles from the interstate as background sounds. On a cool, clear morning in late August, my husband Bruce came rushing…

  • The Unexpected and Expected

    It’s the tenth of August, and I can barely believe my ears. A wood thrush is singing two weeks later than I’ve ever heard one before. Such a wonderful, unexpected gift so late in the season when most birdsong has been replaced by the buzzing and chirping of crickets and grasshoppers. But then it is…

  • Lives of Woodland Snails

    Imagine having the time to watch the life of a woodland snail.  That’s what happened to Elizabeth Tova Bailey when she was felled by a mysterious neurological illness that put her flat on her back.  She could not move without pain, and so she was tended by a caregiver in a studio apartment. Then, one…

  • Woolly Bears and Tiger Moths

    What child is not intrigued by woolly bear caterpillars?  Our little granddaughter, Elanor, certainly is.  Last September she gathered up a handful of the bristly creatures as they paraded across our veranda and claimed them as pets.  I tried to discourage her, but she was adamant, and her father, Steve, who is an amateur entomologist…

  • Nature’s Garbage Collectors

    Like residents of Hinckley, Ohio, who always welcome the first turkey vultures back on March 15, I too await the return of them in March and regard them as one of the first signs of spring.  Usually the day they appear here is windy, and they rock back and forth above First Field, their wings…

  • Snowbirds

    It was a fine early December day — 18 degrees with partial sunshine and a howling wind.  A new half-inch of snow covered the ground.  I counted the birds at my feeders because it was a Project FeederWatch day.  For over 20 years, two days a week from November until early April, I’ve been counting…