Nov 30, 2023
Orion has been my favorite winter constellation for many years. Sometimes subtitled “The Hunter,” it seems apt that Orion is lying on his side these days, perhaps resting up from early mornings of deer hunting. Traditionally, of course, his quarry was more mythical—chasing the beautiful seven sisters of Pleiades,...
Nov 23, 2023
Out in the middle of Sugar Bay, a small shape interrupted the glimmering ripples. Even in the poor light at a fair distance from a moving car, I could tell that this was a loon by their distinctive silhouette.
The loon’s gray-brown back, full white throat, and pale cheeks confirmed them as a juvenile, a young of this...
Nov 16, 2023
“November is a sigh; a sigh of weariness after the tumult of summer, a sigh of resignation over projects yet undone, a sigh of regret for hopes unfulfilled. It is a sigh of frustration that no matter how we try, the world seems to be sinking deeper into the morass, and a sigh of sadness that neither we nor those...
Nov 9, 2023
The icy hike was beautiful, and “snowflake birds” swirled ahead of my car all the way home. Real snowflakes chased me from behind, and soon accumulated six inches of the white stuff. Snow buntings and needle ice foretold the coming winter, and as I write this, it...
Nov 2, 2023
Autumn on the Alaskan tundra was a whole new spectacle. With ground-hugging shrubs—all of them circumpolar species who grow around the top of the globe—instead of tall trees, it looked like the land itself was drenched in a rainbow swirl of melted crayon. But caribou were the official reason I’d come here, to the...