Getting Outside
Lundgren’s Lounge: “The Peregrine,” by J.A. Baker
categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside / Guest Columns / Reading Under the Influence
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Somehow this once obscure, extraordinarily unique book found its way into my hands, transporting me for a few days to the coastal fenlands of eastern England and the world of the peregrine falcon. The Peregrine by J. A. Baker was originally published in 1967 during a period of steep decline in the population of these magnificent raptors and perhaps that was part of what motivated the author—to attempt to describe the life of a creature at once so ferociously singular and powerful, before it was gone forever. But what Baker accomplishes along the way is much deeper, achieving “… an account of a human obsession with a creature that is peerless.”
Getting Outside Saturday: Fall Color (a photo haiku)
categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside / Photo Haiku
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Getting Outside Saturday: Once More to the Beach (a photo haiku)
categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside / Photo Haiku
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Getting Outside Saturday: Sparkler Time (a photo haiku)
categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside / Photo Haiku
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Getting Outside Saturday: Spring Blossoms (a photo haiku)
categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside / Photo Haiku
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Blood root
Here Come the Summer Birds!
categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside
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Brown Thrasher
Today was a warm one in western Maine, sixty-some degrees and sunny. Warm enough for the bugs to wake, which means the arrival of the breeding crowd, our summer birds. I took the usual hour’s walk in the woods this morning and to the stream, a great meeting place of forest and field, stream and sandbar. And what singing! It always takes me a minute to remember my birdsongs, but they do come back. Black and White Warbler like a squeaky wheel. Common Yellowthroat, witchety-witchety-wichety. That kind of insistent and snotty-seeming and much-repeated Chestnut-Sided Warbler song: I’m a chestnut sided, what d’ya think of that? And the oven birds are back: Teacher! Teacher! Teacher! Also a Black-Throated Green Warbler, plenty to say. Continue reading →
Lundgren’s Lounge: “All the Wild That Remains,” by David Gessner
categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside / Reading Under the Influence
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The natural world is out of balance. That much is clear to all but the most myopic among us. Global warming, annual ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ weather events, water scarcity, toxic pollution, species extinction… the list is a depressing drumbeat foretelling catastrophe. Yet despite this impending crisis the environmental movement seems to have lost its mojo. Where are the iconic leaders of this generation, the Ed Abbeys and the Wallace Stegners, wordsmiths who could awaken a movement with their well-chosen words? Continue reading →
Getting Outside Saturday: Traveling Giants
categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside / Photo Haiku
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A friend spotted this scene on a recent trip to Honduras…
