The upland bird hunting season opened Saturday and shotgun reports could be heard throughout the valley on a bright, crisp, colorful autumn day. For what it’s worth, personal observation points to a down year for ruffed grouse. That early assessment is subject to change as the young season progresses, but after brief fruitless visits to […]

State Deer Project Leader Bill Woytek had an interesting take on the rabid bobcat that went on a rampage through the Greenfield Meadows last month on a sultry Saturday afternoon before being killed by law-enforcement officials. “I guess it has something to say about the many mountain lion sightings reported over the years,” he said. […]

A soft cool breeze tickled my right eardrum, caressed the tip of my nose and carried my scent in a northeasterly direction, toward the small stream exiting a massive beaver pond a hundred or more yards north. The clock was the sunset shadow creeping up the eastern ridge before me. I knew that once the […]

My mind started wandering on a fog-drenched Wednesday morning as my truck meandered home through the Greenfield Meadows, and for some reason it brought me back to my old footloose days, when I’d head for a hilltown stream on similar damp, grey days. Back then, there was always a round, galvanized, two-handled washtub full of […]

The crescent moon cast a vertical smile over the southwest corner of a little hayfield where a doe and her fawn had been showing up often on summer eves. I had seen them many times in my nightly travels, consistently entering the field around dusk, behind the cover of a razor-thin hardwood stand some 30 […]

A neighbor and I were on our way to Halifax, Vt., Saturday morning when, coming around the corner to a small East Colrain produce farm, we were confronted by an unexpected catastrophe. Farmer and friends were standing on the driveway below his hillside home, marooned from West Leyden Road by a muddy torrent as wide as […]