tales from the wild metropolis
Just in case readers assume the title of this post is a typo, let me assure you it is not. I'm fully aware that the photos featured here are of mute swans (Cygnus olor) but, like any wordsmith worth her salt, I can't resist indulging in a little harmless wordplay. As you'll discover later in... Continue Reading →
Lately, when I'm feeling especially stressed or anxious, I find it comforting to escape reality by watching a sitcom episode, or three, from "the before-times," a term now being use as shorthand for "everything prior to the first quarter of 2020, when the world changed for everyone, everywhere." Little wonder I've considered, in odd moments,... Continue Reading →
If the stranger hoped to slip into Lafayette Square unnoticed he went about it all wrong. Sure, choosing a plain white top beneath an unadorned black waistcoat might sound like a reasonable way to avoid detection, especially when one is hanging out against a backdrop of grey-scale bark and shadow. I could tell at a... Continue Reading →
Watching a white-breasted nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) cascade along the steep slope of a tree brought to mind the playground at Oakville Elementary, and made me wonder if the species' iconic bottoms-up foraging style is the result of a dare. The far corner of our grade school property was the site of many childhood rites of... Continue Reading →
How often do you come across a bird so dee-lightful, so dee-lectable that it captured the attention of characters as disparate as W.C. Fields and Cole Porter? Quite often, actually, because chickadees (Poecile spp) are far from rare in North America. In my own little corner of the world, a historic neighborhood about two miles... Continue Reading →
[In honor of (and with apologies to) Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss.] On February the fourth, 'neath skies colored gray, In the dimming light, at the end of the day, He was walking, the sights and smells thrilling, When Dashiell the terrier heard a low trilling. Life is better with a little Next-Door Nature—click the... Continue Reading →
One for sorrow, Two for joy, Three for a girl, Four for a boy. Five for silver, Six for gold, Seven for a secret, Never to be told. Eight for a wish, Nine for a kiss, Ten for a bird, You must not miss.* One... I'll concede to the prognosticating poet who wrote this traditional... Continue Reading →
On frosty mornings, Mercury is uncharacteristically slow to leave that snug thermometer bulb... and I can't say I blame him. I've been in no hurry to leave my own cozy bed since Winter hit town back in early November. However, my terrier and personal trainer, Dashiell Riprock, is stubbornly insistent about our regularly scheduled morning... Continue Reading →
Next-Door Nature 