Category: Mountain Essays
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Hummertime, and the Living Is… Breezy?
Hummertime, and the Living Is … Breezy? By Margaret DiBenedetto Well, it can be breezy, if you have any hummers that like to dive bomb you; within a whisker of those wings, you can feel the wind they create against your face. And you can hear the buzzing drone of those wingbeats from some distance…
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A Native Mess Is Best
A Native Mess Is Best By Margaret DiBenedetto There’s them that mow and cut every bit of scrubby brush, field edge, and wetland they can access with brush hogs and chainsaws. They remove limbs and leaf litter from patches of woods to neaten and straighten and “clean it up”. But Nature isn’t generally “clean”, “straight”,…
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Ebony’s Den
Ebony’s Den By Margaret DiBenedetto The icy surface of the snow crunched under the weight of my snowshoes. Just loose enough to get a good grip; firm enough to keep me on top of the two feet of late winter snow that had fallen, begun to melt, then iced up again. It was a good…
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Springtime Babies
Springtime Babies By Margaret DiBenedetto Springtime is a very busy season for wildlife rehabilitators. Birds and mammals are more plentiful and more active; fresh from winter slumbers or newly arrived from southern climes, they become occupied with territories and reproduction and are less observant of roads and cars, dogs and cats. While accidents and injuries…
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Who Cooks for You?
Who Cooks for You? By Margaret DiBenedetto Dusk. Twenty or so of us had headed up the path through the field, then turned down toward the stream and crossed the covered bridge. “Here,” said Chris Wood, “this spot is perfect.” Chris and his wife Jessie Barry, of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, had come to…
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Nighttime Rescue
Nighttime Rescue By Margaret DiBenedetto The car moves slowly through the drizzly darkness, low beams light the rescuers ahead. They bend and scoop their way down the road, depositing delicate catch into a bucket, saving the little creatures from being flattened by an occasional car on this empty stretch of rural highway. Each year since…
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Know Your Garden
Know Your Garden By Margaret DiBenedetto “Know your garden!” he insisted. “Know your garden! What’s the point of it if you don’t know what’s there?” Truth was, I deserved the tirade. He’d merely asked about the birds, and I’d stammered and stuttered and could barely think. Truth was, I was completely starstruck by this famous…
Wild Life Stories 