Birds

Nature Writer

Leave a Comment / Animals, Birds, Nature Writing, Writing

Courtesy of Mel Shaw How I Became a Nature Writer Originally published in A Wing in the Door I grew up surrounded by a small woods and, because of my artist parents’ solitary life, the trees became more my kin than people will ever be. But alas, for all its charm, my woods was threatened …

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Wonderful

Leave a Comment / Birds, Foley Mountain C.A., Inspiration, Nature

Wonderful Recently, in an effort to dodge all my Facebook wannabe suitors I decided to replace my portrait there with a representative image. Rummaging through 20 years of my own pictures, I was arrested by this blurry, long-ago snapshot of Merak, the human-imprinted red-tailed hawk, who flew free at Foley Mountain, but saw me and …

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Ken in the Wilderness
Ken in the Wilderness This week, I spent a morning revisiting my artist father, Ken Phillips’, Ruined Orchard series of oil sketches. As I looked, I could see how it was for him then. When he set out that September morning to the dying orchard, my father would have been heading deep into his own […]
A Season of Miracles
A SEASON OF MIRACLES By the standards of an eastern Ontario spring it’s early yet. But even still my land is full of promise. This morning, there is the bliss of rain. Not snow, but a cleansing rain. When I push open my front door, I hear a first robin singing. (In these uncertain times […]
Bolton
Camp Bolton Sometimes the most powerful learning experiences come in the most unexpected ways. More than fifty years ago, I was accepted as a junior volunteer counsellor at what was then called Bolton Camp for Underprivileged Kids. In late June I went for an afternoon’s interview in a downtown Toronto office, where a supervisor sat […]
Walking Blind
Walking Blind On this, my eightieth year, there are no maps for me. I’m walking blind. How long will I be able to continue living at Singing Meadow, my soul place? Where will I go when I no longer can stay here? How would I ever live without the sound of the wind in the […]
Gathering Moss
Gathering Moss This year we are celebrating the publication of a new book by distinguished author Robin Wall Kimmerer, Potawatomi botanist, mother, plant ecologist, and the director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Kimmerer is already honored for her […]