A Grand Correction
Can new media conquer print media? We shall see. I don’t know about you, but I’ll be showing up for my talk on the Grand Canyon on FRIDAY, January 27, at 7pm at the Unitarian Church in Montpelier. The Montpelier Bridge calendar has it scheduled for Thursday. Don’t come Thursday.
On FRIDAY, I’ll be talking about how the canyon came to be and why it’s one of the coolest places on the planet. You’ll learn some easy geology and discover, among other things, the tale of my finding the continent’s smallest butterfly in its largest and most spectacular ditch. You’ll also see pretty pictures (unlike that shot of Mr. Dorky up there). More like these:
Killing My Kindle
Blogger’s Note: Hear me read this on Vermont Public Radio.
Downtown Montpelier is lucky enough to have three independent bookstores, a pleasing blend of creaky wooden floors, informed employees, hand-made signs and a wise selection of titles.
Not long ago, Ruth and I were browsing at Bear Pond Books when she came upon Carl Safina’s latest masterpiece, The View from Lazy Point, still in hardbound.
“Well, I guess I’ll read your copy,” she said.
I looked back with a sheepish grin.
“Oh, right … it’s on your Kindle,” Ruth announced.
Shoppers stopped shopping. Employees stopped working. Their looks were like arrows through my heart. I withered. I shriveled. Right there in non-fiction. It was as if Ruth had announced at a PBS party that I watched Fox news.
Yes, it’s true. I own a Kindle. And it’s finally weighing on my conscience. read more…
Gib and Sue Geiger over at Mountain Valley Farm in Waitsfield had a Varied Thrush out back today. Gib got a few shots. They’ve left out some dried fruit and cracked corn, and the bird has taken a bit of it. Gib and Sue are great folks and would welcome visitors in the event the thrush sticks around. They’re at 1719 Common Road in Waitisfield. Pull in the drive and poke around out back where they first saw the bird. And while you’re there, buy some honey, maple syrup or farm-fresh eggs. And bring your skis if you’d like to hit the cross-country trails.
Snowy Owls and Us
Blogger’s Note: Here’s one of my articles now making the rounds in Vermont newspapers.
By Bryan Pfeiffer
© In This State
ADDISON, VT – A snowy owl usually appears indifferent. Sitting on a fencepost along a barren cornfield, it is a bird without country or concern. Driving snow and vicious winds don’t matter. You don’t matter either. A snowy owl doesn’t care that you’ve driven halfway across Vermont to see a bird. A snowy owl doesn’t even know you exist. Or if it does know, it doesn’t really give a hoot about you anyway.
So you stand there next to the car among birdwatchers, hands and feet already frozen, peering through binoculars at a creature that has flown here from someplace dreadfully colder than Vermont. Out there in its field the owl is languid, a frosty statue lazy to the world. Or so it seems. Then a birdwatcher coughs, or curses the wind-chill, and the owl spins its head.
At that moment a snowy owl will change your life.
Its eyes, lemon-yellow laser beams, make you melt. They spring open and glisten from a fluffy white expression. In a single glance, the owl says, “I’ve seen icy places you can only imagine. Now go about your business, go lead your dreary life. I’ve got rodents to kill here.”
Snowy owls are offering passing glances to many Vermonters this winter. The arctic birds have descended on the state in unusually high numbers, turning up in a few strange places: on a brick chimney in Brattleboro, during a Christmas party in Colchester or on a garden gazebo in Panton. Addison County seems to be the epicenter of the owl sightings. For bundled up birdwatchers, the hard-core and the incidental alike, the owl invasion is among this winter’s great natural events. read more…
The Hale Street Gang in Lebanon
Jack Rowell is the epitome of talent behind a camera. He’s a friend, a colleague and an inspiration. One of Jack’s projects – the Hale Street Gang: Portraits in Writing – opens at AVA Art Center in Lebanon, NH, this Friday, January 13, from 5-7pm. I’ll be there. You should be there, too.
The multimedia exhibit of photos and histories grew from a memoir-writing project at the Randolph Senior Center inspired by writer, author and all-around-cool-person Sara Tucker. Sara runs memoir-writing workshops at the senior center. Jack’s elegant black-and-white portraits of the 80- and 90-year-old memoirists are a highlight of the exhibit. “These folks were telling stories about people and places I remembered from my own childhood,” he says, “places like the Randolph playground and Tunbridge, where my grandmother lived.”
Also on display at AVA will be paintings by Bethel artist D’Ann Calhoun Fago, a member of the memoir-writing group who turned 94 in December. That’s her painting, the Bootlegger’s Daughter, above. D’Ann will be at AVA for the opening as well. So will Sara and Jack, of course. These are folks you’ll want to meet. I’ll see you there! Below are four of Jack’s portraits (clockwise from left): Cookie Campbell, Margaret Egerton, John Jackson, and Ruth Demarest Godfrey.
Getting Gulls
The herring gull, one of our most cosmopolitan bird species, thrives in picnic areas or parking lots, at farms or fast-food joints, at sea or in sewage lagoons. The ivory gull (right), the embodiment of white, breeds as far north as any bird. And across the planet, not from the Antarctic Peninsula, the kelp gull can gouge and eat blubber from the backs of surfacing southern right whales.
Gulls are nothing if not resourceful. About 50 species inhabit the planet. Here in the Northeast we are fortunate to find at least a dozen, including rarities from the arctic, Europe, or Asia. So perhaps you may be asking yourself, “Is this guy actually trying to get me to watch gulls?” Warblers? Sure. Thrushes? Fine. Sparrows? Maybe. But gulls?
Yeah, gulls. read more…
Hampered by hawks? Stumped on sparrows? Flummoxed by flycatchers? The Better Birding lecture series will solve your avian anxieties. With slides, videos, humor and exuberance, I’ll offer secrets and easygoing approaches to birdwatching enjoyment … and enlightenment. Lectures are scheduled to coincide with what’s hot in Birdland. You’ll laugh and learn … a lot.
DATES: First Mondays of the month (with a few exceptions) from 6:30-8:00pm. This month’s bonus session is TONIGHT: Getting Gulls (yeah, gulls), January 9, at 6:30pm in Montpelier.
LOCATION: First Baptist Church of Montpelier, a block down School Street from the Kellogg-Hubbard Library. Here’s a map.
FEE: $10 per session
“CURRICULUM:” Here’s your syllabus.
The Better Birding series is co-sponsored by the Vermont Center for Ecostudies and the North Branch Nature Center.
Snowy Owl Update No. 5
The central Champlain Valley continues to be the epicenter for Snowy Owl sightings in Vermont. This is partly due to its general attraction for winter birding. Snowy Owls are no doubt elsewhere in Vermont — and across much of the northern United States. All we need to do is find them. Even if you don’t, winter birding has its rewards. For me, yesterday, those included Northern Harriers patrolling fields in the angled light of December. Busy flocks of Snow Buntings and Horned Larks. And a Peregrine Falcon, first toying with a Northern Harrier, then taking a Mourning Dove. The Snowy Owl that Pat Folsom and Pat Allen discovered on Slang Road in Panton wasn’t in evidence on Saturday. But not far away, Jennifer Brown found one in a plowed field at 6168 Goodrich Corner Road in Addison. I got a lousy digi-scoped shot (over there to the left). Thanks, Jen!
Snowy Owl Update No. 4
The ghosts of winter have been a bit more predictable in the past few days. Here in Vermont, dedicated Snowy Owl watchers have found them:
- In Panton in the area of Slang and West Road on December 23. (Thanks, Pat Folsom and Pat Allen.)
- In Panton at Spaulding Bay at the end of Turkey Lane on December 22. (Thanks, Jim Mead.)
- In Shoreham at the junction of Whiting-Shoreham Road and Webster Road on December 22. (Thanks, Shelagh Smith.)
There’s certainly a hot-spot of sightings in the central Champlain Valley (my little map to the right) of Vermont and New York. And the Massachusetts coast has been fairly reliable as well. Here’s the interactive eBird Snowy Owl map. When you get to the map, click on the “Show Points Sooner” box to the right for the best view of locations. You’ll find a list of all my Snowy Owl updates here.
A Winter Moth
My Vermont Public Radio commentary on the physics and love life of a winter moth aired yesterday. But you can listen to me here on the blog or on the VPR web site. I’ve blogged here about this moth, Bruce Spanworm (Operophtera bruceata). You may still find a few. But a relative, Fall Cankerworm (Alsophila pometaria), should be still flying in southern New England and points south.
