Great Outdoors

Ice cream trucks and icebox cakes

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Summers in the 1950s included gleaming white Good Humor trucks whose jingling bells announced that frozen treats had arrived. I’d beg my parents for change and dash to the curb for a creamsicle or toasted almond bar.

Great Outdoors

Hunting for hungry, hungry hatchlings

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In late spring and early summer, many birds take up hunting. This is true even for birds that primarily survive on diets of nuts, berries and seeds throughout the fall and winter. Common birdfeeder species, such as northern cardinal, tufted titmouse and black-capped chickadee, shift from foraging for fruit and seeds to hunting insects, spiders, beetles and caterpillars.
So, what accounts for these seasonal shifts in diet and behavior?

Granby Land Trust

Spring migration brings spectacular birdwatching

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On the Granby Land Trust’s annual Mother’s Day Bird Walk, which took place at the Dismal Brook Wildlife Preserve in North Granby, participants spotted an incredible 52 species of birds over the course of two hours, with especially fine views of rose-breasted grosbeak, kingfisher, black-throated blue warbler (always a crowd pleaser), wood thrush, spotted sandpiper, great blue heron, common yellowthroat and Virginia rail.

Great Outdoors

The case of the missing fireflies

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One of the joys of summer, no matter what one’s age, used to be watching the fireflies flitting about one’s back yard during the evenings of early summer. What child hasn’t trapped a few in a glass jar and kept them in the bedroom for the night? That is beginning to feel like a bygone pleasure, as it is becoming hard to find them anymore.