Category: Nature

Daylight Savings

There are many early indicators of a seasonal shift from Winter to Spring at Wachusett Meadow Farm in New England — an increase in snowshoe travel, strong shadows and patterns, running streams, melting snow patches on stone walls, diminishing icicles, sheep wool thick enough for shearing and diverse creatures sunbathing and feeding.

Ice World

Winter has transformed the Wildlife Pond at the Wachusett Meadow Audubon in Princeton, MA. The beaver lodge has a chunky white coating, while other areas of the pond sparkle with ice ranging from rough and jagged to windblown and smooth. The red and gold vegetation at the pond edges lends a delicate frame to this “ice world”.

A Keen Observer

This Northern Cardinal, high above me on his windy perch, spotted me photographing him. With feathers rustling in the wind, his watchful eye followed me attentively. With a sudden flash of brilliant red, he swooped down to command the bird feeders, constantly checking out the action around him. It wasn’t until he was at ground level that he seemed curiously unconcerned with the small mammals hunting for seeds with him.

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Winter Friends

Winter birds such as the white-crowned sparrows and dark-eyed juncos have been appearing at the Wachusett Meadow Audubon in Princeton, MA. Surprisingly, I spotted an eastern bluebird still hanging around with them. Perhaps he belongs to a group that has wintered here in recent years.

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#OptOutside

I was surrounded by a colorful group today as I opted outside for Black Friday. The Summer birds are long gone, but my Winter feathered friends enlivened the landscape with flashes of red, white, gold and blue.
A bonus: it didn’t take me long to find these birds. They all visited the bird feeders within the space of a half an hour as I sat quietly watching.

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Harvest Moon

The Harvest Moon is the full Moon nearest the start of fall or the autumnal equinox. The Old Farmers Almanac says that the Harvest Moon is so named because:
“…for several evenings, the moonrise comes soon after sunset. This results in an abundance of bright moonlight early in the evening, which was a traditional aide to farmers and crews harvesting their summer-grown crops. “
I was disheartened when I began photographing, thinking that the clouds would “get in the way” of the moon. On the contrary, the drifting cloud cover lent the moon a dreamy and evocative atmosphere.

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