Dear Wood Folk, I’m excited to start Volume 2 of the Wood Folk Diaries. We’re going to the birds! Our first guest is perhaps my favorite, red being my favorite color: meet scarlet tanager (piranga olivacea). The ornithologist Edward H. Forbush called Scarlet Tanagers “the appointed guardian of the oaks“. There’s one place to look […]
Category Archives: The Wood Folk Diaries
The Wood Folk Diaries: Volume 1, Chapter 9: The Lost Gosling
Dear Wood Folk, A blur of a floof was sprinting through my woods one morning, after a scary stormy night! Mostly yellow and tawny brown. Black webbed feet. Black beak. I’d seen these floofs before because the Canada geese loved to nest beside my parent’s pond. This one was far from a pond. It’s a […]
The Wood Folk Diaries: Volume 1, Chapter 8: Feisty The Painted Turtle
Dear Wood Folk, One of the pleasures of living in a county with over 600 lakes and rich in wetlands is turtling. Maybe that is not a word but since birding is a word, and herping is too broad, let’s go with turtling. My computer’s dictionary sure isn’t up on nature slang. On a sunny […]
The Wood Folk Diaries: Volume 1, Chapter 7: Hello, Foxes and Kits
Dear Wood Folk, Before I showed up at the Song of the Woods Studio, a couple foxes and some kits hung around for two years. I myself have seen many fox in these parts, but I’ve never had the pleasure of watching a family at their den. Robin gave me the scoop, and a whole […]
The Wood Folk Diaries: Volume 1, Chapter 6: See You Later, Makwa
Dear Wood Folk, Oh my, is this Makwa’s last appearance? I snapped this photo of him before he focused on his denning for the winter: He did not come back the following year. Or did he? There were bear tracks, a couple of bear signs I noticed in 2019. It could have been him just […]
The Wood Folk Diaries: Volume 1, Chapter 5: Black Bear Before and After
Dear Wood Folk, Would you believe me if I told you Makwa has started to CHARGE at chipmunks? Those same scary chipmunks that were making him skedaddle up trees?! He even had a moment of bravery when bluff charging that frightening housecat for invading his bear space. It helps that he is so much bigger […]