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Not a Snipe Hunt
On a cold, crisp day in late January, my husband Bruce, son Mark, and I set out on our annual Winter Raptor Survey in nearby Sinking Valley. Although a substantial snow had fallen the previous day, all the township roads had been plowed, and Bruce had no trouble driving our usual 35-mile route. Despite a
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Owls of North America and the Caribbean, by Scott Weidensaul
If you like owls as much as I do, then the Peterson Reference Guide to Owls of North America and the Caribbean is the book for you. Filled with gorgeous, glossy photographs of owls, this book also serves as an excellent reference source. Neither as folksy and readable as the Bent series on birds nor
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I See Change
Everyone sees change over their lifetime. I certainly have. This year was my 45th living on our mountaintop property in central Pennsylvania. My husband Bruce and I also celebrated our 54th wedding anniversary. The three sons we raised on this mountain are middle-aged and we are old. During our tenure here we have seen many
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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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White-throated Sparrows
By November most of our songbirds are gone. But at least a few white-throated sparrows, which nest farther north and have been migrating through here since late September, elect to stay instead of heading to the southeastern United States to spend the winter. Not only do they stay, but they continue to whistle their plaintive
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Winter Hawks
It’s October and folks are perched on mountaintops throughout Pennsylvania watching the raptors parade south. Even on our mountain, I can sit for hours on a breezy October day and count dozens of raptors flying past. Officially, fall raptor-watching begins in mid- August and doesn’t end until mid-December, but the largest numbers and diversity of
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Songbird Journeys
For those of us who appreciate songbirds, September is the saddest month. That’s when most of them start their long journeys south. Gone are the songs of spring and early summer, the raising of youngsters, even, in some cases, their bright spring colors. A few songbirds, such as eastern towhees and yellow-rumped warblers, migrate no
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Chimney Swifts
Think of them as “flying cigars,” one of several descriptive nicknames for birds first named “American swifts” by early naturalists and later in the nineteenth century renamed chimney swifts. Their short, bluish-black bodies with silver gray throats and squared-off tails flutter bat-like through the air on long, scythe-shaped wings. “Bows and arrows,” another nickname, can
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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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Watcher at the Nest
Last April our son Dave, my husband Bruce, and caretakers Troy and Paula spotted a male pileated woodpecker excavating a nest hole in a 60-foot-high, barkless elm snag. At first I wasn’t interested. I had often seen pileateds working on nest holes, and they had never amounted to anything, because pileateds had been making one
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Two Book Reviews
I’ve decided to start periodically putting up book reviews I’ve been writing for our Juniata Valley Audubon Society’s The Gnatcatcher in the belief that reading books with a nature theme is important for those of us who love the natural world. Here is the one from the November/December 2015 issue: Recently I’ve read two novels
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The Masked Bandit
It is late afternoon on May Day, and the masked bandit is standing on the stoop of our veranda door. He looks around alertly as I speak to him. “What are you doing here?” I ask. He doesn’t seem inclined to move or to answer. After all, he’s only a songbird who sings “witchedy, witchedy,”
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Marcia Bonta 