Marcia Bonta

  • Stony Garden

    Researchers puzzled over why only the boulder fields in a thin line from northern Bucks County to nearby Montgomery County outside of Pottstown ring with melodious tones. Current thinking is that they ring because of the density of the rocks and the high degree of internal stress that occurred when the molten rock came close…

  • Elk Country Outing

    Elk Country Outing

    As soon as we saw a sign telling us we were in Elk Country, five pairs of eyes scanned the landscape for a glimpse of the elusive elk.

  • The Waterfowl Itch

    When I hear and see flocks of tundra swans flying northwest in early March, I get what I call the “waterfowl itch.” I want to visit as many lakes as possible to feast my winter-weary eyes on brightly-colored migrating waterfowl.

  • Midwinter Cranes

    I never thought I would see sandhill cranes less than 20 miles from my home in central Pennsylvania. Yet there I was last January, sitting in our car with my husband Bruce, watching five sandhill cranes through our scope as they foraged in a small wetland near State College. When the word went out on…

  • Year of the Sinking Valley Eagles

    I learn that a pair of bald eagles is nesting on the other end of our mountain. My Amish friend has spent time watching them from afar across a steep, wooded ravine on State Gamelands #166.

  • Gamelands Tour

    I’ve always preferred to walk rather than drive through the fields and forests of Pennsylvania. Still, I was tempted last October by a driving tour in nearby State Gamelands #108 and persuaded my husband, Bruce, to accompany me. It was a lovely autumn day when we found our way to a gamelands access road in…

  • Pancake Flats

    On a cool, breezy day in late July, my husband Bruce and I decided to hike on Green Springs Trail in Pennsylvania State Game Lands #108.

  • Christmas books for nature-lovers

    Christmas is coming and even in this super-technological world, some of us still like to curl up with a good book. If you are such a person or if someone like that is on your Christmas list, you might be interested in one of the following books. Cerulean Blues: A Personal Search for a Vanishing…

  • Louisiana Waterthrush

    Sometime in early April, I hear the ringing song of a Louisiana waterthrush near our Plummer’s Hollow stream. One of the first neotropical migrant birds to return, he comes winging in from as far south as northern South America and southern Cuba. This handsome brown warbler, his whitish breast streaked with brown, looks more like…

  • Wildflower Drive

    A chorus of birds greets me this cool, foggy day — song sparrows, eastern phoebes, dark-eyed juncos, robins, and northern cardinals — all predictable on the tenth of April. And then, from the top of First Field, the imitative song of a brown thrasher unwinds. At last a sign that this late spring is underway.…

  • Return of the Bald Eagles

    Eight inches of fresh snow covered Sinking Valley. It was early in February 2011 and our son, Steve, and I were conducting our annual Winter Raptor Survey while my husband, Bruce, drove the car. I had been participating in the survey every winter since Greg Grove first started this statewide count back in 2001. When…

  • Hiking the Bells Gap Rail Trail

    On the last day of October, twenty friends and members of the Juniata Valley Audubon Society hiked down the Allegheny Front beginning in State Gamelands 158, following the remains of the Bells Gap Narrow-Gauge Railroad. Back in 1872, it was built from the railroad station in the Logan Valley town of Bellwood to Lloydsville, nine…