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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…
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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.
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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.
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.…
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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…
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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…