An animal no bigger than a decent-sized roast was the undoing of a levee last week in Missouri, leading to the flooding of one town along the Mississippi River. Authorities blamed a burrowing muskrat for breaching a levee. Its small hole allowed the river to penetrate the levee and eventually lead to its failure.

I [...]

I guess I missed this commercial at Super Bowl time but I got such a chuckle out of the screaming animals when I saw it recently that I had to go find the spot on YouTube. I especially like how the mouse lets it all hang out in delivering his scream, standing on his tiptoes.

I used my car as a hiding spot the other evening and pulled up right next to the hummingbird feeder. Below is a short clip of a hummingbird, um, feeding at the feeder. Here’s an earlier post about hummingbirds.

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When we last left our eagles in Southeast, the two young ones were nest-bound, sitting and panting in the massive pile of sticks atop a white pine tree.

Today, I managed to set up my spotting scope in time to see an adult and one of the young fly away from the nest. The immature eagle [...]

Pigeon droppings are not going to soil any bowls of strawberries and cream at Wimbledon, not if tournament organizers have anything to say or do about it.

Beauty and the Burn isn’t a Walt Disney movie but the headline on an article about wild parsnip and giant hogweed, two bad-news plants that can burn and scar you and, in the case of hogweed, even blind you should you get its sap in your eyes.

The article is in the most recent issue of [...]

So I put the hummingbird feeder back out last week and the local hummingbirds seem to be enjoying it. I had mentioned my failure last year to attract hummingbirds to the feeder and a commenter on an earlier post suggested making nectar by mixing together 1 part white granulated cane sugar to 4 parts water. [...]

A bear under her deck. That’s what Southeast resident Maffalda Clair just called to tell me about, her Sunday morning company.

Clair, mother of former Brewster Fire Chief Ken Clair, said she went out on the deck early that morning to hang her laundry on her clothesline.

“I heard rustling under the deck. He comes out and [...]

The Westchester Land Trust, the Hudson Highlands Land Trust and the Eastern New York Chapter of The Nature Conservancy are among the 13 local, regional and national land conservation groups being honored Saturday by Scenic Hudson. To read more about all the honorees, go here. After the break, I’m highlighting the three local honorees.

Nothing like relying on your snake as your attack animal of choice. Lucky for the Bridgeport police, this python was no Kaa.