In September, as summer yields to fall, most of the colorful birds that breed in our region during spring and summer head south for warmer locales. The departure of ruby-throated hummingbirds, Baltimore orioles, migratory woodpeckers, and numerous warblers doesn’t leave us entirely without striking birds, however.
Perhaps the most vivid remaining species is the purple finch, which occurs in northeastern forests year-round and is a winter visitor to bird feeders. [Read more…] about Purple Finch: A Colorful Year-Round Resident
This summer Brookside Museum in Ballston Spa, NY, opened an exhibit: “Century of Ice Cream! The Dake Family and Stewart’s.”
Ask someone the name of a three-ring circus and their response would likely be Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey, or a combination of the two. Ringling Brothers World’s Greatest Shows was established in 1884 and P.T. Barnum’s Great Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, and Hippodrome had opened in 1871. Predating both was the biggest, most successful, though also the least known of the traveling shows, Adam Forepaugh’s Great All-Feature Show and Wild West Combined, established in 1863. 
I have often been stopped in my tracks by the sight of a white-tailed doe standing in the lush summer grass. Depending on the sun’s slant, the animal’s coat is a rich shade of rusty brown or burnt orange. More delightful still is the sight of a fawn, reddish brown with scattered white dots. Deer are not the only creatures that start out spotted, but their speckled young may be among the prettiest that do. 
The grackle appeared early last spring, the day before I put the feeder away (so as not to tempt the bears who would soon be awakening from their winter dens). In the dim light of a cloudy day, this avian visitor seemed at first to be just another blackbird, on the larger side, perhaps, and with a longer than usual tail. When I peered at him through the binoculars, however, his head and neck shimmered with iridescent blues and purples, and there seemed to be a greenish tinge to his wings. 
I put the small brown ant I had mounted (but never identified) under a microscope and peered down at it. Two huge, headlight-like eyes stared back at me. That couldn’t be right; ants don’t have eyes that size and shape.
A century ago, Corinth, in 
The saga of thoroughbred racing at 