I stood and stared in awe.
I was just a little boy when my father took me to the cathedral that very first time and I stood there and looked up in great wonderment.
Over my head massive timbers reached out from the apex in all directions. The central pillar, a grand and ancient monolithic support to [...]

Not only are most city people heartless but city animals are a lot nastier than country animals.
Let me illustrate.
Never have I had an evil bird encounter in the country.
As a naturalist I have been bat dived, crow cussed, hawk bit, owl clawed and otherwise tormented by all sorts of country birds while in the course [...]

Have you ever heard the lonely far off wail of a steam locomotive’s whistle? You might expect that a train’s whistle would sound the same, night or day, summer or winter but what you expect is not necessarily what you get.
Night, due to the cooler air has as much the ability to change sound as [...]

It was one of those special, other worldly, northern winter nights when nothing can surprise you and you just know that anything might happen.
A full moon made the snow shrouded woodland glow in a mysterious, almost magical iridescence.
It was one of those nights when all of nature held its breath, waiting, just waiting. One of [...]

If we don’t care for the land, if we don’t care…?
Great blue herons are such magnificent creatures.
There are three herons feeding in the shallow waters at the lakes edge while another stands elegantly on a fallen log dozing. Or perhaps it is meditating.
Whatever it is doing it stirs and lifts one wing and grooms itself [...]

HSSSSSSSS
By
Charles Towne
Of all government organizations the U.S. Peace Corps, by its very name denotes a benign, yes, even peaceful existence, after all it is called, “The Peace Corps.”
One can only imagine the pains the organizers have gone to in order to make the time served as safe as possible for the volunteers but then one [...]

For those of us that despise the taking of an animal’s life for whatever reason we must understand that to the Maasai his wealth and stature is contained in his herds of cattle.
When wild animals make depredations on those cattle it is well understood that the warrior will defend his property as you or I [...]

To Ratty’s readers,
Ratty, being of a somewhat shy and retiring nature, (you can understand why considering his name) has asked me to come to his readers with an apology.
The “vulture” hanging from the tower is in fact a fake. Yes, it is a scare buzzard, or a fright vulture, bogus bird, or whatever.
It did not [...]

When in my teens I found a very emaciated muskrat wandering near our home on the Fox River in Illinois. It was obvious the little fellow was starving, what wasn’t so obvious was, Why?
The wee wildling didn’t struggle as I gently begin to handle and examine it. Poking and prodding I searched for some obvious [...]

My desk is located exactly fifty feet above the ground next to an ancient cypress tree. It defies all logic and all natural laws as it floats there while I work.
As I sit at my desk I can look out over the surrounding swamp and up and down the river and now and then a [...]