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Pop Goes the Weasel
Last spring, we had several encounters with a long-tailed weasel that was probably denned up under the guesthouse. Whether it was only a male weasel, a female with young, or both we never knew because we only saw one weasel at a time. Our guesthouse was built in 1865 by the original settler, William Plummer…
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SGL#166 Beaverdam Wetland
On a rainy Sunday afternoon in early October, my husband Bruce and I joined fellow members of our Juniata Valley Audubon Society on a field trip to SGL#166. This 11,776-acre game land includes the Beaverdam Wetland Biological Diversity Area (BDA), which is tucked in a remote wooded valley in southern Blair County between Canoe and…
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The Glory Days of September
After the slow, hot days of summer, September with its often cooler, drier days is a welcome relief. Most of the fair-weather songbirds are still here, but some are already on the move by the beginning of the month. I looked out on a wet day in early September and caught a flush of birds…
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Squirrel Wars
Last autumn, our granddaughter Eva, who was staying with us for several months, started complaining about the noise in the attic above her bedroom. At first, I dismissed it as the usual small animal noises on the roof or even in the attic. My bedroom was next to hers and I wasn’t hearing anything out…
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A Visiting Porcupette
“Mom, there’s a porcupette in your herb garden,” our son Mark said. I hurried out to see it. The little creature was tucked in against our brick chimney and flapped its tiny tail when I put my hand near it. Apparently, it had climbed up the slope from the overgrown flat area below. The porcupette…
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Cats and Wildlife
My mother-in-law was a cat lady. Born and raised on a farm in northeastern Pennsylvania in the early 20th century, she, like most rural residents, then and now, knew the value of “barn cats”—free-ranging cats fed by farmers in exchange for the cats dispatching the rats and mice attracted to food they grew and stored.…
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Central Appalachian Fishers
It was near the beginning of the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s reintroduction of fishers to the commonwealth. This second largest member of the weasel family had last been documented in Pennsylvania when it was trapped in 1921 at Holtwood, in Lancaster County. Denise Mitcheltree, then a graduate student at Penn State back in May of 1995,…
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Black Squirrels
“Mom, there’s a black squirrel in the flat area.” It was 5:30 p.m. on a balmy day in early March and my son Dave and I were fixing dinner in the kitchen. I rushed to the window, grabbed my binoculars, and called my husband Bruce to come and see the unusual eastern gray squirrel. In…
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Adaptation
July, like January, is the most extreme month of its season, and during both months I must adapt to challenging weather if I want to walk our trails and observe wildlife. In January, when the wind is howling and it’s ten degrees Fahrenheit, I wait until mid-morning to venture outside swathed in several layers of…
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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.…
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Coyote America, by Dan Flores
Here is a review of the book Coyote America which I wrote for the November/December 2016 issue of The Gnatcatcher, published by the Juniata Valley Audubon Society: If you, like me, are a fan of coyotes, this book will both delight and sicken you. Subtitled A Natural and Supernatural History, Flores covers every aspect of…
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Living with Bears Redux
Most summer evenings after the heat of the day has faded, I walk Butterfly Loop. This trail encircles a portion of our 37-acre meadow we call First Field. Often I’m treated to a stunning sunset, and always I hear and see songbirds that prefer a meadow of forbs or the edge of a wooded ridge.…
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Marcia Bonta 