Marcia Bonta

  • The Gifts of May

    The Gifts of May

    Spring is my favorite season and May my favorite month. To me, beginnings are always more thrilling than endings and comings more wonderful than goings as I experience all the excitement of new and resurrecting life—the returning of birds, the blooming of wildflowers, trees and shrubs, and the newborn fawns, bear cubs, and other mammals.…

  • 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.

  • Earth Day

    I was out this perfect day by 6:30 because Bruce was still sleeping, and it was Sunday–his day to make breakfast. I brewed my coffee, slipped on my walking shoes, left a note for Bruce and was off, coffee mug clutched in one hand. Bluebirds sang in the yard and field sparrow song reverberated in…

  • Chasing Breeding Birds

    “You know you’re getting old when you start repeating yourself,” I thought when I first heard about Pennsylvania’s Second Breeding Bird Atlas project. “Been there, done that,” I said and immediately signed up last spring and became the “owner” of the two blocks that include our property. The same, yet different, is probably an apt…

  • Watching Winter Predators

    During winter, we are all in it together–the birds and animals that choose to tough out the season here, and my husband Bruce, our son Dave, and me. Wild creatures and humans alike must have enough food to stay alive and healthy and adequate shelter from cold and wind. For us humans it is relatively…