Egret feathers were worth more than gold in the late 1800s, when the fashion industry used them to decorate women’s hats. These spectacular birds were nearly hunted to extinction—and might well have disappeared if not for Boston socialites Harriet Lawrence Hemenway and her cousin Minna Hall, who rallied 900 women to boycott feathered hats in […]
Animals of The Secret Bay: Egrets
Egret feathers were worth more than gold in the late 1800s, when the fashion industry used them to decorate women’s hats. These spectacular birds were nearly hunted to extinction—and might well have disappeared if not for Boston socialites Harriet Lawrence Hemenway and her cousin Minna Hall, who rallied 900 women to boycott feathered hats in […]
River Otters!
Two surprises popped out of a hole in the ice on a small roadside pond on Deer Isle as I drove by the other week: river otters! They didn’t seem to mind the cold and snow a bit as they frolicked on the ice and then dove back underwater. Winter is a good time to […]
Glimmer of the Week: Born to Help?
Some biologists think humans might be hard wired to help others. They’re taking some of their cues from babies. I love this. Researchers have found that one-year-olds will point to an object that an adult pretends to have misplaced. At eighteen months, toddlers will assist a person they don’t know by opening a door or […]
Great Gift Book
When my book group picked Half the Sky, I thought it would be a depressing read. Wrong. Half the Sky is an unsentimental eye-opener about the oppression of women and girls, and it’s so inspiring that it moved us to take action. We realized that doing something small together could make a real difference in […]
Maine’s Songbird Superhighway
The morning air smells of balsam and wet duff as Adrienne Leppold sets out on a narrow trail to check the mist nets she set up before dawn to capture birds in a patch of forest in Orono. A great-crested flycatcher cries “wheep, WHEEP,” one of a dozen or so species calling and singing in […]
While You Were In
While you were in, a hermit thrush called. There’s no telling whether or when he’ll call again, fluting his song into the forest, where it will linger less than an instant. A doe stopped by while you were in, entertaining a parade of anxious thoughts. She decapitated your favorite phlox, the ones with the snowy […]
A Walk on the Wild Side
The moose peeks out between tall white pines, her dark brown hide blending with the bark. She swivels her ears and ambles toward us. My heart speeds up as she draws closer. She pokes her massive head through the door of the feeding station, where Steve Oliveri awaits with one of her favorite treats: sweet […]
Book Signing in Brooklin
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