One thousand miles across Alaska. No, it wasn’t me. I haven’t even been to Alaska. It’s on my bucket list, but haven’t gotten there yet (and when I get there, I don’t see a 1,000 hike in my future). This past December, I noticed a presentation notice that interested me in the back of the most recent Green Mountain Club magazine, under “News & Information.” Kristin Gates was speaking at the Green Mountain Club Visitor Center on December 21st. Kristin,…
An owl says “hoo dat?” as he is caught in the mist net hanging in the dark. “Damn,” the owl thinks as he is put in the cloth sack. The owl doesn’t know what to think as he is placed upside down in a plastic jar to be weighed. At the end of the ordeal is freedom…and a cool new ID bracelet to show his friends and impress the ladies. I first heard about the Cape May, NJ owl banding…
Step one, watch The Big Year movie with Steve Martin, Owen Wilson, and Jack Black. Step two, get a couple of your friends together to hold your own (very little) Big Year birding competition. Step three, have at it for bragging rights…and it is a pretty healthy diversion. First, we should define a Big Year. A Big Year, according to Wikipedia (which contains the sum total of all human knowledge), “is an informal competition among birders to see who can see or hear the…
My family and I spent a lovely Thanksgiving at my brother Jim’s house in Woodbury, Connecticut. We were outside setting up for our annual archery tournament and the kids and I discovered some interesting tracks in the backyard. Being trained scouts, they started following the tracks by carefully walking directly in the tracks. I managed to take this picture with my iPhone before it was stomped out. My nephew, Jack, was the lead tracker. He followed the tracks under the…
(as published in the Mountain Gazette, July 18, 2013, p. 1) (Quote by Jonathan Swift) Every once and a while a story comes along that just warms your heart. You see the good in the world and forget, at least for a time, all that is so troublesome. I heard such a story the other day from my wife, which led me to call the people involved, and to put “pen to paper” as it is. Back in mid-June, Priscilla Emerling…