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By BILL DANIELSON

It was the end of a very long day, but, because of the increasing daylight that we have all been enjoying, it was still light out when I got home. I pulled up to the garage, but I had to get out to open the garage door because my door opener had died....

By BILL DANIELSON

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 2023 was the warmest year ever recorded. I remember it being hot in the summertime, but I think the effect of this heat was most noticed by me in the autumn. The Thinking Chair...

By BILL DANIELSON

It was early in the morning.  I had a fresh cup of coffee and a little something to nibble on as I sat down at my computer and tried to make a decision.  What was I going to write about this week?  There were two ideas rattling around in my head but...

By BILL DANIELSON

It was a cold winter’s night and my beautiful wife Susan and I were watching movies. There was a fire crackling in the wood stove, we were enjoying good food and drink and we were both all snoodled up and comfy. It was everything you could have wanted...

By BILL DANIELSON

I receive emails from readers throughout the year and I do my best to respond to them in a timely manner. Sometimes messages pile up in my inbox and sometimes things get filed incorrectly, but I genuinely do try to respond to every one. This year (the...

By BILL DANIELSON

My selection of a writing topic is not always an easy thing. Sometimes I sit down to the keyboard and find myself completely stuck. I haven’t had an idea all week and at the last minute I still find myself with nothing to focus on. These are the...

By BILL DANIELSON

It appears as though winter has finally arrived. November and December (most of which is technically autumn) were very mild and all through the Christmas break the high temperatures were consistently above freezing. This resulted in little to no snow...

By BILL DANIELSON

Every winter I get a few emails from readers who want to know if it is normal to see American Robins in winter and every winter I send out responses that indicate that the presence of these birds is quite normal. I then go on to discuss various...

By BILL DANIELSON

Welcome to 2024 everybody. As is tradition at this time of year, I like to take a look back at the highlights, successes and other happenings we have shared over the past 12 months. So without further adieu, let’s dive back in time to one year...

By BILL DANIELSON

Dear Reader: I can’t believe that 2023 is almost over. Next week I am going to work on my traditional Year-In-Review column, but today I have decided to give myself permission to go back to one of my favorite photos of 2023. This is a photo that I...

By BILL DANIELSON

With Christmas just around the corner, preparations for the big day are in full swing. Just last weekend I visited my parents’ house in South Amherst and I participated in a new activity: card making. My mother has become a real fan of creating...

By BILL DANIELSON

I’ll just get straight to the point – it didn’t happen. Try as I might, I was unable to break the record for the number of bird species observed in my yard. For about a week it looked as though my magical record-breaking streak of four consecutive...

By BILL DANIELSON

As November comes to a close, we find ourselves just three weeks away from the official arrival of winter. Many of us have seen our first snowflakes already, and last week we had a wintry mix that may have added a smidgen of anxiety for anyone...

By BILL DANIELSON

It was your standard November morning. I had a cup of coffee, I was adding notes on temperature and precipitation into my journal and I was keeping track of the arrival times and numbers of different species of birds. There was nothing out of the...

By BILL DANIELSON

As I write this column I am looking out my office window at a world that is enduring its first winter storm of the season. Back in October we saw the first flakes of snow, but that wasn’t really enough to describe as a storm. It was thrilling to see,...

By BILL DANIELSON

Sometimes you see these things coming and other times you don’t. This is a story about both. The first was simple math and I could see its approach coming months ago. There was a certain inevitability about the whole situation and it was really just a...

By BILL DANIELSON

It was early in the morning, before the sun had come up, and I was tasked with the weekly chore of taking the garbage out to the curb. Sometimes I remember to do this the night before, but I am somewhat wary of the midnight raiders that might knock...

By BILL DANIELSON

As more and more of the national and international news seems to be increasingly depressing and alarming, I imagine that many of you, like myself, might be looking for solace wherever you can find it. It might be losing yourself in the spirit of the...

By BILL DANIELSON

“One has only to sit down in the woods or fields, or by the shore of the river or the lake, and nearly everything of interest will come round to him, — the birds, the animals, the insects; and presently, after his eye has got accustomed to place, and...

By BILL DANIELSON

Well, dear reader. I find myself presented with an increasingly rare opportunity to introduce you to a species that has not been discussed in the past 26 years of my column. As time has marched on I have seen one species of bird after another, but to...