On this particular day I am late getting started. As the new day dawns, animals, large and small, usually seek lay ups where they can rest in anticipation of their evening feed.
I tell myself that it is unlikely that I will see much but you never know, and after all, I need the walk.
As I [...]

 
 
 
 
Don, a fire spotter for the U.S. Forest service was hiking down a little used trail in an area seldom visited by man in one of those vast wilderness areas of Montana.  As he came around a bend in the trail he spotted a young black bear moving in his direction on the same trail.
The [...]

Years pass, memories fade, old news clippings turn yellow and hair either turns white or falls out, such is life.
It has been many years ago but it is permanently etched into my memory.
I was preparing to transport an African spotted leopard to another location when quite suddenly I found myself flat on my back with [...]

                        The large snake was warm and for the moment that was all that was important.
 
Lying in the grass as he was he was well hidden though there were not many that would dare to intrude upon the reptiles solitude.
  
In six years of life he had never been threatened by another predator except [...]

 
As soon as I glimpsed the small group of whitetail deer approaching the river I beached the canoe and quietly stepped into the shallow water.  I was wearing cutoffs and an old pair of sneakers as well as my well-used camouflage gear. 
The water was cool as I moved quietly to the downstream side of [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]