I remember my Mom telling me that she remembers exactly where she was when Kennedy was assassinated. A historical tragedy that happened long ago, that I had learned about in school, but my…

The creative team of author and poet Susan Schadler and artists Lynne and John M.T. Seitzer recently released “Growing Wild: Four seasons of New England and Native Plants and Their Creatures.”…

In this age of artificial intelligence, satellite tagging technology, automated sound recorders, genetic analyses, and countless other sophisticated science tools,…

I am not working tomorrow. As a self-employed small business owner, this is not an easy decision. While I have never regretted my choice to strike out on my own on September 1, 2014, the…

We stumbled upon a surprising concentration of shorebirds a few days ago. If you’ve ever driven down Interstate 295 to Portland, you have driven over the Royal…

There was once a young man who had just obtained his driver’s license. He had already acquired his own car, a 1956 Volkswagen, and the 15-year-old was told by his parents that the furthest…

We made our migration back from North Carolina last week after an enjoyable but brutally hot, humid time there as we  recounted in last week’s…

Thirty-three years ago, I packed up most of my clothes, a few posters, my CD collection, and a new Lego set into the family’s white Nissan minivan for the trip south. Goodbye to Lincolnville…

Like early migrating birds, we have recently made a trek south from Maine to North Carolina. It’s not the time of year when most Mainers head south—not when temperatures have regularly been in the…

I went on a date with my wife yesterday. The Saturday morning chores were mostly done. I’d tackled the bathrooms and vacuuming and taken the trash and recycling to the transfer station. She…

Why are we Lincolnville?

This isn’t a philosophical question; really, who was this Lincoln? It really isn’t much of a mystery, but not something that I ever recall being…

The “review.” It’s how we decide whether to watch a movie or show, dine at a new restaurant, even hike a trail we’ve never taken before.

…

“65 years ago today. Dad opened Western Auto in Camden.” This was the first social media post that I saw yesterday morning. August 1, 1961. Well before my time, the store opened at the…

We hate to be the ones to say this, but could you think of a bird name that’s more boring than this: broad-winged hawk? What does the non-birder imagine when they…

Twenty four years ago, almost to the day, I met a girl. It was a set-up. I was in my late 20s, and had settled into a career that suited me. I had an apartment In the South End of Rockland…

There are few better places to be on a torridly hot summer day than the cool ocean waters off the Maine coast. That’s where we found ourselves a few weeks ago…

It is really easy for those of us from Maine, and those of us who have lived here fulltime for a number of years, to forget just what a tiny place our state is, at least in the number of…

Some of you may know of our sometimes obsession with bird names. We’ve written before on topics that fit that bill, including the question about…

Terns eat fish. We all know that (don’t we?). Many’s the time we have watched these graceful, long-winged birds hovering over the ocean surface before plunging down…

Yesterday we celebrated the Fourth of July, and the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The birthday of the United States.

For the eighth…

We are fortunate to have a very leafy green neighborhood. Maples, ash, ornamental crabapples, the occasion red oak, a few black locust—the sightline from our porch…

It was around 25 years ago that we built the sauna.

Backyard saunas are an odd feature of Midcoast Maine, surprisingly common due to a long ago influx of Scandinavian…

Oystercatcher. It’s an evocative name. Even if you didn’t know that it refers to a bird, you would probably imagine some living thing that catches oysters. Even…

This home where I grew up and continue to live is old. Not by any stretch among the oldest in this little town, and far from the finest, the most opulent. Just an old farmhouse and barn,…

A few nights ago, we took our little black dog Loki, out for a last chance to answer “nature’s calling” before we retired for the evening. We had been lured into…

What a beautiful week we have had in this little town on the coast of Maine. Bright sun, a bit of rain, fog rolling in off the bay in the morning, everything green and growing. Our summer…

There’s no doubt that we birders find a thrill in seeing rare birds—birds from somewhere else that make their way to wherever we are (in our case, Maine)…

It was quite a week in the household at Sleepy Hollow. Our daughter’s graduation from Camden Hills Regional High School was a multiple day affair, starting with the baccalaureate on Monday,…

We wish we had been able to get a photograph of it to show you.

The first crop of baby American robins were out of the nest in our…

It catches me off guard every year. The rapidity in which the barren landscape of Maine in Spring explodes, seemingly overnight, into an absolute riot of green, of flowers, and well, of…

Birds that are great at soaring often seem to do so into, what is for them, uncharted territory, especially in spring when they can ride warm, southerly winds and…

The best thing about being self employed is that you get to make your own hours. You decide when you work, no need to ask permission to take time off, to wait for approval. The part no one…

Over the last month as we’ve walked our little black dog around the neighborhood each morning, we’ve rarely been out of earshot of the trilling songs of either dark-eyed juncos or…

Around noon Friday, during that brief reprieve I have built into my work day, when I go for a quick walk or otherwise get out of the office, I received a text from my daughter, who was up at…

For us, spring birding this year has been marked by a new species arriving just about every day, making us very aware of that deep pulse of life on Earth called migration. Eastern…

Maine’s sailing tradition, of course, goes back to the beginning of European settlement, being the only way to get here. Those early explorers and colonizers, making their way up our rocky…

It may seem early to be thinking of summer, given it’s still early May, but the excitement generated by some rare birds found recently here in Maine has made us think about the…

Friday evening found us with a very quiet house. All three kids were off on an overnight trip with the Camden Hills High School band. What is a middle aged, temporarily childless couple to…

A significant athletic achievement happened over the weekend. You may be thinking of the London Marathon in which Kenya's Sabastian Sawe ran the 26.2 miles in under two hours—a first…

It has been an unusually chilly spring, even for Midcoast Maine. Snow in April, well it happens, but twice in one week? Sitting in my office on Camden Harbor, sun flooding through my windows…

There’s still at least three or four feet of snow on the ground in the Seal River Watershed. It’s located in northern Manitoba, but already there are perhaps twenty million birds or…

Way back in that far away time of early Spring 2020, the Lincolnville Historical Society had planned a special event: Dollfest, a gathering of historical dolls, many owned by folks active in…

It’s still early enough in spring that migratory bird species are arriving relatively slowly. The first wood ducks one day, then maybe there’s a week or so before the next arrival—…

There are certain things that need to be done in their time. Late summer/autumn brings wood stacking. The morning when the pile of wood — thankfully pre-split these days, not tree length as…

Have you ever wondered why it is that some ducks have the word “duck” in their English name while others don’t?

Maybe you have to be a bird nerd like us to ponder that…

Growing up, we had a full set of World Book Encyclopedias on the bookshelf in the front hall. I was the kind of kid who, from time to time, would pull down a volume and spend a good chunk of…

Isn’t it wonderful to have the sun streaming in late in the day while birds are still singing well into the early evening hours? That by itself is a sure sign of spring. Each of us…

Three tundra swans showed up last week in Scarborough Marsh, a noteworthy find considering Maine is outside of the normal migratory path for these giant white birds.

We were…

For most bird species, the first individual you see is indelibly etched in your memory. You may remember the place, the weather, whether you were hungry or tired, who you were with,…

A few weeks ago we wrote about the bomb cyclone that tore through the northeast in late February and how it might…