Every year as the sun rises earlier and sets later, I get antsy. I’m ready for winter to end and spring to begin. So I keep my eyes on the juncos at the feeders. They arrive each fall in late October or early November and stay the winter. Their return north in April is a sure sign that ...

I once took a workshop that evaluated children’s knowledge of nature based on how they drew trees. As their experience outside grew, their trees went from looking like green lollipops to developing rougher edges, some branches and then some animals in them. The drawings became more and more ...

There’s good news from the mountains of central Mexico this winter. World Wildlife Fund Mexico and the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve announced on Jan. 30 that 14 overwintering monarch colonies occupied a total area of 14.9 acres, up from 6.1 acres last winter. Counts of individual ...

Even in the coldest of winter, getting outside is a possibility and, for some, a necessity. Curling up inside is appealing, but after a time I must go out and “get the stink out”. And this time of year, it often means at night. Outside adventures at night are a choice made more from ...

When I was working as an environmental educator in Syracuse, one of my all-time favorite programs to teach was all about a man named Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley. During our program we would teach first graders how as a boy little Willie Bentley loved snowflakes more than anything else in ...

Among birders, sparrows tend to be disrespected or at least ignored. Most are small, drab little brown birds. Brightly colored show stoppers such as yellow-throated warblers, Baltimore orioles, and scarlet tanagers usually steal the attention on spring bird walks. Sparrows are certainly ...