Discover the Best Books
Love to wander the aisles of bookstores? Want to follow your curiosity and meet amazing books? You are in the right place. Above is the official intro to a noble new effort to bring readers and good books together, called Shepherd. I was honored to contribute my take on the The Best Books on Nature…
Read MoreFarewell to Merlin
FEBRUARY 5, 2022: Our merlin is back. She’s been appearing every so often for a couple months now, her muscular, falcon physique silhouetted dark against the blue skies. Over the last five winters she’s marked the seasons, here by late autumn from somewhere in the Canadian latitudes, gone by the early months of spring. It’s…
Read MoreThe Lonely Bull
THE CAPE BUFFALO is a wild bovine who lives upon the savannas and woodlands of east Africa. It’s a massive beast up to five and a half feet at the shoulder, with bulls weighing upwards of a ton. The oldest of these bulls wear the biggest horns, like Viking helmets, lending a warrior mien…
Read MoreFly Wars
IT’S GOTTEN TO BE that season here again in southwest Florida, that maddening season of the flies. These are the close, heavy days of August when the biting bugs are out in force and hungry for blood. These are the humbling, soul-testing days when the tolerable annoyance ramps to the relentless assault that will slap…
Read MoreGotcha Day, Every Day
JUNE 15, 2021. Nine years ago today I came upon a wounded puppy standing in the middle of the trail. He was a doe-eyed, bull-headed creature who reeked of rotting flesh as I lifted him to my chest. (We would later learn that he’d most likely been doused with acid.) The veterinarians who examined…
Read MoreAnd Still the Song Dog Sings
IT IS GOOD to hear the coyotes singing again. For a few weeks last month we were awakened now and then to their yips and wails coming from someplace across the canal where they’d been prepping for this season’s litter of pups. We hadn’t expected to hear from them this year because of the…
Read MoreMountain Lions Can Rebuild Nation
AS WE SIFT THROUGH THE RUBBLE of a four-year blitzkrieg on the country’s air, water, wildlife and climate, we’re heartened to see the Biden administration articulating bold ideas about repairing the wreckage. Most impressive is his commitment to protecting 30 percent of the Earth’s landscape in nature reserves by the year 2030. In this spirit…
Read MoreMy Octopus Teacher
AGES AGO, I visited the invertebrate house of the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. to meet Hercules. Hercules was the zoo’s resident giant octopus, whose first impression I would later record as “a fleshy confusion of serpentine limbs and baggy head, a tentacled wreckage with a disturbingly human eye peeking out from within.” There…
Read MoreOde to a Dead Rat
THERE’S A RAT lying dead beneath the back porch. He announces himself as I’m sitting on the steps taking a moment of sun with a cup of tea, when that morbid little waft of him sours the ambience. And there he lies, down by my feet in the dark beneath the stairs, stretched out…
Read MoreThe Family on the Curb
A FEW DAYS AGO I was driving along a frontage road near a busy intersection, when I passed a woman and her dog sitting on the curb. The woman was holding a cardboard sign, hand-scrawled with the message that’s become all too common around town these days: “Please help.” I took a u-turn and…
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