Thanks for Visiting

On this national day of Thanksgiving, it is appropriate that I express my gratitude to those who take the time to read and consider the vari...

Bald Eagles at Swan Lake

Driving north to find snow geese, which had eluded me this autumn, I headed to Swan Lake National Wildlife Refuge, in north-central Missouri...

Economic Fairness

Within the past 24 hours, Pope Francis has denounced the tyranny of capitalism and the New York Times reported that a conservative activist ...

Travels with Boreas

Winter Storm Boreas, so named by the Weather Channel, is the product of atmospheric low pressure interacting with a deep trough of Arctic ai...

Magpie Mafia

On my last day in Colorado, as Arctic air enveloped the Front Range and snow began to coat our Littleton farm, a flock of black-billed magpi...

Fifty Years of Doubt

On the morning of Friday, November 22, 1963, I was living in a black and white world.  Any questions that arose were answered by my parents ...

Winter Slides South

After a mild autumn across most of the U.S., a dome of Arctic air is sliding south across the Mountain West and Great Plains.  Devoid of pot...

November on Sharptail Ridge

Southwest of Denver, a low ridge divides the watersheds of the South Platte River and Plum Creek, which merge in Chatfield Reservoir.  Known...

Our Seasonal Solitaires

By mid November, the high-pitched, squeaky calls of Townsend's solitaires are echoing across our Littleton, Colorado, farm.  Summer resi...

Kudos to the Weather Channel

In a number of past blog posts I have chastised the Weather Channel and their superstar meteorologists for making longterm hurricane forecas...

The Little Rocky Mountains

West of Fort Peck Lake, in northeastern Montana, a cluster of domes and buttes rise above the Great Plains.  Almost 200 miles east of the Ro...

A Waterfowl Count

Though I am not a groupie when it comes to hiking and birding, I do enjoy participating in the occasional bird count and, this morning, took...

The Upper Plum Creek Valleys

West Plum Creek rises in the Rampart Range, west of Raspberry Butte, and snakes northward through a scenic valley bordered by foothills, to ...

Poverty & Natural Disasters

The scenes and news from the Philippines following Typhoon Haiyan are heartbreaking.  Though uncountable individuals and organizations acros...

Reunion Pond

Yesterday morning, glorious November weather coaxed me down to South Platte Park, in Littleton, Colorado.  There I encountered almost every ...

From Sandhills to Mountains

Leaving Lacreek NWR yesterday, I drove south into the Nebraska sandhills and then turned west on US 20.  The scenic sandhills eventually giv...

Lacreek NWR

What a difference a day makes, for weather and birding alike!  As expected, the Arctic front dipped across the Great Plains overnight and, t...

Blue Skies, No Snows

Heading back to Colorado, I decided to shift my route northward with the hope of encountering large flocks of snow geese and with a plan to ...

Rushing toward Death

We humans tend to be impatient creatures but some individuals are always in a hurry.  Ever conscious of the time and date, they strive to be...

Autism, ADHD & Human Diversity

Over the past decade, human society has become increasingly aware of autism and its spectrum.  As is frequently reported on television and r...

Long-tailed Weasels

The most widespread mustelid in the Western Hemisphere, long-tailed weasels inhabit open woodlands and forest clearings from southern Canada...

Birding in the Mist

A low, gray overcast produced a steady drizzle across central Missouri this afternoon.  Nevertheless, it was the most convenient time for my...

Trillions of Earths

As reported by news agencies yesterday, a study of data from the Kepler Space Observatory suggests that there may be 40 billion Earth-like p...

The Gift of Conservation

Those of us devoted to conservation will receive little personal benefit from our efforts.  While we may have the chance to visit wilderness...

The Nature of Schizophrenia

A string of violent tragedies have plagued the U.S. over the past few years.  In many cases, the perpetrator has been a young man who, prior...

Fear of the Dark

We humans, children of the Tropics, have an innate revulsion to the waning daylight of autumn, having learned early in our history that the ...

November: Nature's Cinderella

Mention autumn and most Americans think of pleasant September, beautiful October and their ugly sister, November.  After all, November has a...