Farming/Nature
Curious Hawk
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A juvenile red-tailed hawk peeks out from a hydrangea.
Farming/Nature
Sunflower Snack
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A tree swallow bids farewell to Hilltop Farm and summer, ready to migrate along the Atlantic Coast to Florida or Central America.
Farming/Nature
The Red Eft: Exemplar for Change
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There were many great things about my childhood best friend. One of those was her family’s school bus that they had turned into a camper long before the word glamping was coined. They had painted it white with blue trim and jury-rigged calico curtains in its windows. We got to play in it in the yard which was a dream. We jumped from seat to seat with no bus driver to yell at us, pretended to drive it careening around corners at high speeds, and sometimes we just sat and inhaled that naugahyde smell.
Farming/Nature
African Mystique
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An Observer volunteer, Ben Fuller, sighted some wonderful wildlife during his recent vacation in Souh Africa.
Farming/Nature
Listen to the Mockingbird – “tweet tweet”
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These days a few of my friends and I are participating in the Suffield bird census. We are clutching our lengthy list of birds hoping to check as many off as possible as we peruse all the open space we have here in our town. We rarely leave our houses without grabbing our binoculars, ears tuned to any bird calls which might reveal a new visitor hiding in the trees. More often than not, I have been hearing our mockingbird as he goes through his rendition of other bird calls, as they have been known to sing 200 different songs and when they exhaust their repertoire, they can even mimic car alarms. Many a birder has been fooled by his singing, but it wouldn’t seem right to have him silent. By this time of year, the mockingbirds are well-established in shrubs and thickets around town.
Farming/Nature
Daisies
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Nature came along in spring
And sowed angelic daisies
Along a vacant roadside
Competing with the beauty of
The big red barn upon the hill.