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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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Christmas Bird Count
Every December I scout for birds in anticipation of the Christmas Bird Count. Last December, despite the mostly warmish and sodden weather, I spent hours searching usually “birdy” areas on our mountain and finding low numbers of even common birds. One warm, foggy morning I pished up two golden-crowned kinglets and a downy woodpecker on
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November Snow
The snow began in the early morning hours of November 15. By dawn, at 26 degrees, a freezing snow was falling. After breakfast I took a walk to the Far Field over a layer of icy snow. All was silent except for the constant swish of the falling, freezing snow. I made it back home
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A Walk in Penn’s Woods
Last autumn, on a hot, humid Sunday afternoon in early October, my son Dave and I led a Walk in Penn’s Woods on our property. This program, begun in 2017 by the Center for Private Forests at Penn State, has attracted support from both private and public land owners eager to share their forests and
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Aeroecology
As the days shorten, birds begin to migrate long before cold weather sets in. I notice the first flush of migratory birds on our mountain sometime in mid-to-late August. But September and early October are the peak months here for bird migration. Now that they are on the move, birds enter the most dangerous phase
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Going, Going, Gone
August is mostly hot and humid, but every year there are more and more mosquitoes. Many people blamed the excessive rain in the spring and summer of 2018 for the massive numbers of mosquitoes and black flies. It was almost as if we were living in the North Woods. Our vernal ponds on top of
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Purple Martins
One mid-July afternoon near our barn, our son Steve watched two purple martins insect-catching high in the sky. Several days before, down in nearby Sinking Valley, Steve had driven up a private road called Purple Martin Lane and found two large purple martin houses set up by a local Amish family. “There were at least
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Surveying Breeding Birds
Ever since I began documenting bird species on our central Pennsylvania mountaintop back in 1971, bird numbers and species have been declining, not only here but throughout the world. Most of these estimates by scientists are based on a wide variety of bird counts and studies, especially in North America and Western Europe. But in
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Moosic Mountain
Last May seven of us stood atop Moosic Mountain listening to the thin, quick, ascending notes of a singing prairie warbler. It was mid-afternoon after hours of pouring rain and the mountain was still swathed in fog. Six of us, Mike and Laura Jackson, George Mahon, Sam Dietz, Bruce and I, had traveled three and
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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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A Loony Day
“This is probably as close to a red-throated loon as you’ll ever get,” my son Mark said to me. We were standing a mere 15 feet from a red-throated loon that was floating on the acre-and-a-half reflecting pool at the Penn State Altoona campus. The loon had been hanging out there since March 30, having
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Hairy Woodpeckers
On a cold winter morning my husband Bruce and I were sitting in our kitchen and eating our usual Saturday breakfast of muffins and cheese omelets. I looked out our kitchen window and noticed two woodpeckers sparring on the trunk of the driveway black walnut tree. At first I thought they were our yard red-bellied
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Marcia Bonta 