Marcia Bonta

  • A Sedentary May

    A Sedentary May

    After days of fighting my arthritic left foot and back last May, I gave up wandering our trails during my favorite time of year. Instead, I spent hours watching and listening for birds from our veranda. The veranda side of our house faces a roughly-cut patch of grass, the driveway, our 37-acre overgrown First Field…

  • My “Arena of Delight”

    My “Arena of Delight”

    March is a month of hope and resurrection in the natural world. I carry hope with me as we cycle through days of cold and snow, sunshine and warmth, and I bear witness to a variety of sights and sounds during my daily morning walks. As soon as we have patches of open field, American…

  • The Ides of March

    For Caesar, it foretold the day of his assassination. For me, the 15th of March may be a bright, sunny day foretelling spring, a blizzard concluding winter, or, most likely, something in between. So it was on March 15, 2013.

  • Vernal Pond Adventures

    Once again I’m sitting beside our mountaintop vernal pond and wondering if this will be the year the wood frogs will make it out of the pond before the water disappears. A wood frog’s life span is about seven years, and for six years the pond has dried up before the wood frogs’ have fully…

  • A Balmy March

    Ah March! How eagerly we await it as we look for signs of spring between blasts of freezing winds and occasional warm days. On one windy day in mid-March, the first returning turkey vulture flies along Sapsucker Ridge. A calm, warm day brings back a singing field sparrow or eastern phoebe. As the earth thaws,…

  • Early Spring

    Instead of April showers last year, we had unprecedented heat.  On April 2, it was 80 degrees Fahrenheit.  Flowers and trees bloomed days and even weeks ahead of records I’ve been keeping since 1971. By the middle of the month, we had a May woods.  Even the mayapples bloomed in April. During the first half…

  • White Easter

    Easter — March 23, 2008. It is a cold 17 degrees on this earliest Easter Sunday most of us will ever celebrate. And only the oldest folks now alive have seen it this early before, those who were around in 1913. The next time Easter will fall on this date, according to The Christian Century…

  • May Journal Highlights

    May Day Musings May 1. 47 degrees at dawn and overcast with a shower before breakfast. Three deer foraged in the flat area and did not flee when I set out the bird feeder. Halfway along Black Gum Trail, the first ovenbirds finally sang. Our springs are later and later; England’s are earlier and earlier–three…

  • April Journal Highlights (2)

    Close encounters of the avian kind April 18. The sun warmed the Far Field, and as I walked Pennyroyal Trail, a towhee sang, a flicker called, and a ruby-crowned kinglet sang. I stopped to “pish,” hoping to entice the kinglet into view, and I did. He flew on to a tree branch, erected his ruby-crown,…

  • 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…

  • April Journal Highlights (1)

    Heaven on Earth April 1. Forty degrees at dawn and overcast. But a flash of sunlight encouraged me to go outside before the expected rain. I was fully dressed, boots laced, umbrella hanging on my belt, when the heavens opened. April Fool, I thought, and prepared to spend the day inside, catching up on my…

  • March Journal Highlights

    Arizona Sojourn March 20. Because a snowstorm developed the day before we were to leave for the Pittsburgh airport and flight to Memphis, Bruce hurried us out a day early, on March 7, and we barely made it down our road, chains on all four tires, through six new inches of snow. But at least…