It was cold in the dark October woods, thank goodness for my down jacket. As dawn crept slowly over the horizon behind me a faint glow began to light the trees. My eyes picked up movement just in front of me but not a whisper of sound. Frozen in my seat I sensed a patch… Read more
People sometimes ask where I find ideas for my monthly columns, as if I might soon be running out of story lines after more than 12 years. It occurred to me that they might be gently suggesting it is time for me to cease and desist, fading away like an old soldier. The simple fact… Read more
First, one replied, seeming to tolerate my feeble imitation of its song. Then a second one chimed in, triggering responses from the first and from me. Soon after, a third came alive with sound now coming from three points of the compass and the deck of my cabin. As dusk turned to full darkness, I… Read more
“Stop!” hissed our guide Fernando, putting his hand in the air as he halted mid-stride along the jungle trail. Since we had spotted a Central American coral snake earlier that morning my first thought was that we had encountered another venomous denizen of the thick rain forest. There are many dangerous snakes in that region,… Read more
On a crisp, steel-gray night I sat with good friends and cold feet in a small plywood shack on a thick slab of ice. No, it was not a winter camping trip, rather I was smelting. The dictionary defines smelting as “a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to… Read more
Many folks believe that a strict reading of the Bible informs us that while animals may live with us here on Earth, they will not join us in the afterlife. Devoted pet owners who fervently hope to rejoin with Fifi or Cuddles through eternity rebut that view, arguing that God showed great concern for animals,… Read more
“Oh, man,” I muttered to myself a couple weeks ago, “there’s another one!” My thought was triggered by seeing another log pulled apart by a black bear, the third one in just a couple days. The bruins have been increasing in number in the area around our New York cabin for a decade, and I… Read more
This article concerns the intersection of the natural world around us with the world of science, in this case, biological science and genetic engineering. Science has not always been kind to our environment and the creatures who share the Earth with mankind, but increasingly we find examples where breakthroughs can significantly alter the prospects for… Read more
Fannah, our young guide, quietly maneuvered the safari vehicle through the brush and African sage, coming to a stop 25 feet from our target. The towering acacia tree overhead was skeletal, a victim of debarking by rapacious elephants, with dead limbs littering the ground. A mound of white sand amidst the debris marked the den’s… Read more
As I stepped out of the house with a bag of birdseed in hand, I was focused on filling the “squirrel proof” feeder and getting back to work. Focus is a good thing unless you are so single-minded that you blunder into a situation where slow is better than fast, like popping out to the… Read more