Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, longtime readers and newbies alike, today I celebrate my 900th column in the Greenfield Recorder. Since we humans appear to exhibit a chauvinism for “nice round numbers,” I always indulge myself in a little pause in the writing process to look back over the past two years and see where I’ve been. Sometimes this is a really interesting exercise, so let’s see where it takes me.
Shortly after celebrating column number 800, I found myself walking to a pond in search of, well, who knew what. I was fixated on dragonflies and frogs for a portion of that visit, but then I heard a splash in the pond that I simply couldn’t account for. Something rather large was making a sustained ruckus in the vegetation at the other side of the pond, but I couldn’t see much of anything from where I was.
Eventually, I found my way to the other side of the water and needed to take a moment to process what I was looking at. It turned out to be two very large snapping turtles locked into a conflict that I couldn’t really understand. I’d never seen anything like it before and I am fairly certain that I’ll never see anything like it again, but I had my camera with me and I got some wonderful photos.
Later, in the fall of 2017, I wrote a column that actually scared me a bit. Everyone had noticed a marked decline in the number of birds at their feeders. This “disappearance” was so widespread that it had us all concerned. Back in 1989, I read a book titled, “Where Have All The Birds Gone?” The author, John Terborgh, wrote about habitat loss, but there have also been other issues of pollution in the news for decades. It seems as though things have returned to “normal,” but at the time, the birds’ disappearance was quite scary.
The winter of 2018 was also noteworthy because of some peculiar visitors at my feeder. One of these odd birds was a juvenile Savannah sparrow. There’s nothing odd about seeing a Savannah sparrow in our area, but having one visit my winter feeders was definitely a first. This spunky little sparrow would hang around for quite a while before eventually moving off to other places. Again, I was lucky to get the bird on film so I could share it with you.
In the summer of 2018, I sort of went crazy over dragonflies. I had been collecting photos for years and I finally decided to do a month’s worth of columns on these graceful, beautiful insects. Among the many species I covered was what turned out to be my personal favorite, a small jewel of the family called the eastern amberwing. As is often the case with this process of finding treasures out in nature to share with you, I learned more about the world that I might have otherwise and I am now searching for this species in the hopes of seeing it one more time.
By the time that fall 2018 rolled around, there seemed to be no memory at all of the dearth of birds during the year prior. In fact, in November of 2018, I proudly announced the setting of a new record for bird species observed in my yard and then I went on to write columns about the happenings at my feeders, bobcats hunting rabbits in my yard and a weasel that I discovered by my front door. I still haven’t seen that weasel again, but the conspicuous absence of chipmunks on my deck suggests that the weasels are around.
Finally, this past May, I quietly celebrated 22 years of Speaking of Nature. More than anything I’ve done in my life, I am most proud of the work that I have done for this column and the wonderful adventures in nature that I have been able to share with you. And let me assure you that the adventure continues. I’ve already started my column for next week and I simply can’t stop laughing as I type. I think that you’ll enjoy it as much as me when you finally get to read it.
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 22 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service and the Massachusetts State Parks and currently teaches high school biology and physics. Visit www.speakingofnature.com for more information, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.