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By BILL DANIELSON

Every winter I get a few emails from readers who want to know if it is normal to see American Robins in winter and every winter I send out responses that indicate that the presence of these birds is quite normal. I then go on to discuss various...

Wintertime in Massachusetts allows residents everywhere to begin their yearly ritual of feeding the birds. People love watching the many species of birds arriving at their feeders every winter. And in Shelburne, we especially love it when we see one...

ATHOL — The Athol Bird and Nature Club’s 2024 calendar, filled with nature notes, trivia questions and photos of local birds, animals and plants, is now available.The “Birds and Nature of the North Quabbin” 2024 calendar focuses on the beauty of the...

By BILL DANIELSON

To celebrate our anniversary, my beautiful wife Susan and I decided to spend the first weekend of May in Newport, Rhode Island. This is where we were staying when I proposed to her and every now and then we like to head back to the scene of the crime...

By BILL DANIELSON

Three or four times last week I noticed an enormous raccoon on my deck in the moments just before dawn. This was clearly a raccoon that was scrounging for any scraps left over from the meal that I had set out for the birds the evening before and I...

By JULIAN MENDOZA

GREENFIELD — Despite raptor rehabilitator Tom Ricardi receiving a bill that was more than five times what he expected for tree removal, repairs to his Conway sanctuary are well underway.Three enclosures at Ricardi’s Birds of Prey Rehabilitation Center...

By BILL DANIELSON

One thing that I must remember to be mindful of is that my readers live in different places. Some weather events can be quite localized and others express themselves in different ways depending on latitude and elevation. Thus, what happens in...

By BILL DANIELSON

In the year 1500, just a blink of an eye before Europeans started migrating into North America in large numbers, the ecology of the “New World” was relatively stable. Forests of various types dominated the eastern third of the continent, forests of...

By BILL DANIELSON

We’ve reached that point in the school year when my biology students have learned about Gregor Mendel, his experiments with pea plants and the general concepts of genes and heredity. We’ve also taken a look at the structures and basic functions of DNA...

By JULIAN MENDOZA

CONWAY — Even those who are driven to help others sometimes need help. Just ask raptor rehabilitator Tom Ricardi, whose bird enclosures were recently ravaged by a fallen pine tree.According to Ricardi, the tree tore through one of the property’s cages...

By BILL DANIELSON

In last week’s column, I featured the American red squirrel and I shared a photo of one of these rascals solving the puzzle of one of my birdfeeders. “How, do I get those peanuts?” it must have wondered and in relatively short order it managed to get...

By BILL DANIELSON

In last week’s column, I featured the American red squirrel and I shared a photo of one of these rascals solving the puzzle of one of my birdfeeders. “How, do I get those peanuts?” it must have wondered and in relatively short order it managed to get...

By MEGHADEEPA MAITY

When I look at the news, I’m far more likely to see a Black victim of police brutality than to see a Black birder like Dexter Patterson (a.k.a. The Wisco Birder) singing and laughing in the woods. Today’s mainstream media have shown a necessary,...

By BILL DANIELSON

I have no idea how many photos exist in my personal collection, nor, I am afraid, will I ever know. I can say (definitively) that in the past 6 years I have taken exactly 104,308 photos, but that is where “exact” comes to a close. My records prior to...

By BILL DANIELSON

For the past couple weeks I have found myself grumbling during my mornings at the kitchen window.For some reason my yard has become popular with a flock of house sparrows (Passer domesticus) and I am not at all pleased. The house sparrow is an...

By BILL DANIELSON

Welcome to 2023! Another calendar has been used, another red journal finished and safely tucked away on a shelf and newness has taken over. I place a brand new desk blotter calendar on my office desk, I unwrap a brand new red journal and begin to...

By GREG VINE

ATHOL — Members of the Athol Bird and Nature Club do more than watch birds in the wild. Sometimes, they rescue them. Club President David Small said he sends about a half-dozen birds to the Birds of Prey Rehabilitation Center in Conway each year.Now,...