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Giant Silkworm Moth

White-Tailed Deer

White-Tailed Deer (close-up)

Catbird

Barred Owl - Dignified Profile

Great Blue Heron, Crow Hill Pond, Leominster, MA.

"Hope Is the Thing With Feathers"

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Common Goldeneye (female) - Fitchburg, Massachusetts

Common Goldeneye - Fitchburg, Massachusetts

Hooded Merganser (male and female) - Ashby, Massachusetts

Turkey Vulture - Leominster State Forest

GREAT BLUE HERON - LEOMINSTER STATE FOREST

Common Grackles - Ashby, Massachusetts

APRIL ICE

Robin Feeding On Sumac

Goodbye.

Northern Mockingbird - Fitchburg, MA.

His Majesty

Her Majesty

Bald Eagle

The Last Barred Owl Posting

Snow Crystals on a Branch

THOREAU COUNTRY

White-Tailed Deer - Fitchburg, MA.

These two deer were driven to the fringes of downtown Fitchburg looking for mid-February sustenance. It was a sunny day and oftentimes, when they weren't startled by nearby sounds, they both rested in the frozen snow presumably waiting for cover of nightfall to make their exit.

Hunger Moon

The Hunger Moon means winter kill. Winter kill. It sounds almost benign. Until you realize it's a euphemism for weeks of slowly starving to death. The deer have lost their fat and the cold saps their energy. They sleep more and forage less. Their movements become hesitant. Their walk unsure. Slowly their bodies begin to break down until an adult deer is diminished to the point where you can pick up and carry the remains. And, eventually there is the sleep that ends all suffering.

The coyotes and the wolves will eat. As will the foxes and the flock of ravens that circles overhead everyday like winter vultures. In a normal winter, about 15% of the deer herd is winter killed. In an extreme winter, as high as 45%...of about 200,000 whitetails in the province. In nature, there are no seniors homes for wildlife to live out in time in relative comfort and die quietly in their sleep. The only time death is not slow and brutal is when it is fast and brutal.

And the same was true for people in years gone by. Some of my plant reference books are full of references to "starvation food" - what you ate during The Hunger Moon. The cruelest moon of all.

Snow Moon

"Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Let them be your only diet drink and botanical medicines."---Henry David Thoreau

Late Noon Snow Clouds

This appears to be a black-and-white night shot, when in fact I took this color photo at the spur of the moment dismissing it as something that would probably not come out all that good. In fact, I found it was rather atmospheric. No retouching was necessary for this natural effect of the sun behind some thick snow-burdened clouds.

"It was a dark day, the heavens shut out with dense snow clouds, and the trees wetting me with the melting snow, when going through B____'s wood on Fair Haven, which they are cutting off, and suddenly looking between the stems of the trees, I thought I saw an extensive fire in the western horizon. It was a bright coppery yellow fair weather cloud along the edge of the horizon, gold with some alloy of copper, in such contrast with the remaining clouds as to suggest nothing less than fire. On that side, the clouds which covered our day, low in the horizon, with a dim and smoke-like edge, were rolled up like a curtain with heavy folds, revealing this further bright curtain beyond." Thoreau, Journal - January 5, 1852

"The Sun is but a Morning Star."

"I do not say that John or Jonathan, that this generation or the next, will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star." ----Thoreau, Walden's conclusion, Draft F