413.news

With the arrival of June, we find ourselves in what might be the most beautiful season that we experience here in New England. One might also make an argument that autumn is the most beautiful season of the year, but autumn means that school is in session, and thus a point is lost. School is […]

Every spring, when the grass begins to grow, the property owner is faced with a choice: mow the lawn and keep everything tidy, or leave it be … for the bees. For many the choice is simple, but I imagine that mowing is generally the choice that is made. I have attempted the “No Mow […]

The teenaged son of one of my school colleagues was exploring the woods near his house when he came upon a curious situation. The melting of the winter snow combined with the limited rains that we’ve had this spring worked to form pools on the forest floor. Some of these pools were nothing more than […]

Picture this: It’s a beautiful day in May and the weather finally decides to cooperate. It’s a weekend, the sun is shining, the temperature is in the 60s and you decide that it is time to take a walk in the woods. Leaf-out has happened and the woods are filled with filtered light that glows […]

Thursday, April 30, was a cool, cloudy and rainy day. Though the birds were singing, it was a bit nippy outside. I had been out briefly to fill the feeders, but cameras, recorders and other equipment would not appreciate the steady mist that was falling, so I kept myself inside for the most part. Up […]

I consider myself a very lucky person to have so many birds live out the daily events of their lives in such close proximity to my home. The secret, of course, is the endless supply of food that I provide for them in the feeders on my deck. With very few exceptions there is a […]

Happy Earth Day!! In our troubled times, fraught with all manner of chaotic maneuvers at the hands of our national leaders, one can start to feel desperate for anything that might point toward normalcy. Is there anything out there that might suggest that something — anything — is still working according to plan? Well, the […]

I live with a condition that I have named “OCB,” and I self-identify as an obsessive-compulsive birder. This is not a disorder as much as it is simply a lifestyle. I’ve never gotten into a car accident because I was distracted by a bird, I’ve never missed a major appointment because I was distracted by […]

Every year, at just about this time, I start searching the skies above my yard for tree swallows. Their appearance is yet another hopeful sign that winter is beginning to loosen her grip on our northern world and make way for spring to exert herself. Many years see the arrival of Eastern phoebes on the […]

This year, the official arrival of spring seemed to coincide nicely with the disappearance of the ice from many of our local lakes and ponds. Last weekend, while collecting ambient nature sounds for my podcast, I was actually able to hear the impact of this change in the form of distant Canada geese and then […]

It was the first morning of my vacation on Grand Cayman Island and I was up early … as always. Instead of following my regular morning routine of making some coffee and then repairing to the desk at my kitchen window, I made coffee and headed out the door to walk down to the beach. […]

The arrival of Valentine’s Day tends to direct our attention to that certain special someone in our life who stands out as being particularly important in the realm of amore. For me, that certain special someone is my beautiful wife, Susan. I have a tendency to dote on her, but for this year’s celebration we […]