Marcia Bonta

  • The Beautiful Beech

    Ghostly leaves of American beech trees sway in February storms like tiny spirits alive in a frozen world.  But only small and medium-sized beech trees hold on to their leaves throughout the winter. In the fall, I watch the toothed, leathery, single beech leaves turn from green to gold.  Then the gold leaks from them…

  • In Praise of January

    In early January I listen to dire predictions from the local weather reporter. “Dangerous cold,” he says.  “If you must go out, dress warmly.  But try to stay indoors and keep warm.” No wonder most Americans are afraid to venture outside during the depths of winter.  Yet it’s a glorious time to be abroad.  The…

  • Snowy Christmas Bird Count

    All over Pennsylvania, Christmas Bird Counts were being postponed or cancelled because of the weather. But the date, I thought, was set in stone.  We had to go ahead despite the snow. After all, participants in Alaska and northern Canada usually counted birds when the weather was challenging.  That’s what I told my son, Steve,…

  • Allegheny Front Hawk Watch

    “It’s the Cadillac of hawk watches,” my husband Bruce said as we were leaving the Allegheny Front Hawk Watch. Not only does it have a wide, grassy field flat enough for lawn chairs, a picnic table, and a portable restroom back near the parking area, but also a pair of platform benches, fondly called “the…

  • Pennsylvania Hiking Week

    By the time my husband Bruce and I learned that our 13-year-old granddaughter Eva was going to spend the summer with us, most of the state park cabins were booked up.  But we were able to snag a few days at Hills Creek State Park between Mansfield and Wellsboro in north central Tioga County. We…

  • Different Worlds

    What a difference a few miles can make.  From our home on the westernmost ridge of the Ridge and Valley Province to the Allegheny Front is only a couple miles as the crow flies, yet, as I teetered across a log and cable bridge over Bell Gap Run on State Game Lands 108, I felt…

  • 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…

  • The Tree of Great Peace

    The Iroquois called it the “Tree of Great Peace.” Its cluster of five needles to a bundle represented the five nations of the Iroquois and its spreading roots, reaching east, north, west, and south were the roots of peace that extended to all peoples. We call this tree, more prosaically, eastern white pine — Pinus…

  • 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…

  • A Fruitful Year

    Some years are more fruitful than others.  Last year was one of those years.  From mid-June until mid-August I never set out for my morning walk without slipping a pint jar into my pocket.  I wanted to be prepared to pick first the low bush blueberries, then the huckleberries on the powerline right-of-way, and later,…

  • An Enigmatic Warbler

    “Wee, wee, wee, wee, bzzz” sings my favorite yard bird.  For two months most years — mid-May to mid-July — the male cerulean warbler sings his monotonous song from dawn until dusk. The first year this happened, back in 2002, I worried that he hadn’t found a mate.  Why else would he sing on and…

  • Narnia Interlude

    In winter, it’s all about the weather, especially in February when we are liable to experience a confusing mixture of balmy, spring like days, sleet, freezing rain, and snow.  Last February 1 the predictions were so dire that all the public schools and colleges were closed. The “tick-tick” of sleet against our windows began at…