Nature Watch
Art and words by Nona Estrin Foggy August mornings with the last days of early bird song. The stage is now being set for the next season. Alternate-leaved dogwood berries join many…
Nature Watch, July 10, 2024
Now on the few remaining hilly, limey, hardwood slopes that are intact and uncut, the Winooski River Valley’s namesake sends up thousands of starbursts,…
Nature Watch, June 26, 2024
A milkweed patch is impossibly complex and beautiful. And this one is full of ctenucha moths! They flutter about settling as it starts to…
Nature Watch, June 12, 2024
The extraordinary bloom this year, lilacs, wild alternate-leaved dogwood (also called pagoda dogwood), hawthorn, wild plum, blueberries, blackberries, and everything in between, feels like…
Nature Watch, May 22, 2024
With apples in bloom and robins, song sparrows, common yellowthroat, and chestnut-sided warblers singing, I duck under the tree boughs at the edge of…
Nature Watch, May 8, 2024
A male hairy woodpecker, yes. But red on the forehead? Or the forehead and chin? Then it’s the bird of the moment, our recently…
Nature Watch, Apr. 17, 2024
Amphibians on the move! Wood frogs, spotted salamanders, the lesser-known Jefferson-complex salamander, and, soon, peepers and toads. Leeks are up and red-elderberry buds are…
Nature Watch, Apr. 3, 2024
Fox sparrows are singing and chicken-scratching in the underbrush on their stopovers north, and our resident owls are nesting. The most important thing we…
Nature Watch, Mar. 20, 2024
Remembering last year: the great December wind, the historic hard frost in May, and the damaging flood of July ’23. Feeling “Destructive Weather PTSD”…
Nature Watch, Mar. 6, 2024
Here he is, fresh from winter dormancy, this small striped predictor of waking bears! Somehow these two, chipmunks and bears, emerge briefly on warm…
Nature Watch, Feb. 21, 2024
Blue jays rule the world around our house now since the sun started its annual climb back up the sky. Their pre-mating flocks of…
Nature Watch, Feb. 7, 2024
For sun and snow, this is the month. But we haven’t seen true snowpack for years, those durable layers, storm after storm, until three…
Nature Watch, Jan. 24, 2024
Glorious snow between warm-ups, the sun at the sweet spot, providing both brilliance and color to our winter landscape. And more, the snow is…
Nature Watch, Jan. 10, 2023
We just missed having another wet deluge weekend … by only seven or so degrees. But finally, a real snowfall, with all its endless…
Nature Watch: Dec. 20, 2023
Changing climate, changing weather, changing birds. A bird of my southern Indiana childhood, the red-bellied woodpecker, is here, at least once a day, at…
Nature Watch, Dec. 6, 2023
Another too-warm, too-heavy snow! Birds stay close to the feeders again, and among them are a number of very dear little red-breasted nuthatches. Although…
Nature Watch, Nov. 15, 2023
How is it that when bleak, gray, November has just about sunk us into the blues, there will be an hour, a day, or…
Nature Watch, Aug. 23, 2023
More rain! The water is still high on Wrightsville Beach; hoping it will open soon. Several kinds of crickets have started singing, but not…
Nature Watch, Aug. 9, 2023
As goldenrod starts to bloom and birds begin to form small flocks and drift south, our flood recovery grinds on, as relentless as the…
Nature Watch
After the flood many hard questions. So much done and much yet to do to save homes, businesses, and communities and an earth with…
Nature Watch, June 7, 2023
Post May 17 frost, then heat, with ongoing drought. Looking at near, midsummer, and late fruit survival. In the near future, mega-bloom of shadberries…