Monteverde, Costa Rica – It’s such a joy to be back in Monteverde, one of my favorite places in Costa Rica. Monteverde always manage to thrill me with its misty mountain majesty, and impress me with its community dedication to…
Monkey Park
La Fortuna, Costa Rica – Monkey Park is a misnomer. This is not a park at all, but rather a family-owned forest preserve that occupies a corner of a flourishing farm. A 2.5-kilometer trail winds through the luscious primary forest.…
Pandemic Field Trip to Salisbury Beach
Salisbury, Mass – We had so much fun at Wingaersheek Beach on our last pandemic field trip, that we decided to do it again. I mean, there’s not many things we can do during a pandemic, but we can go…
Venice Rookery
Sarasota, Florida – This is birding at its best. Pull up a chair, pour yourself a glass of wine, prop up your binoculars, and the birds come to you! Actually, they are coming home to roost at the Venice Rookery,…
Myakka River State Park
Sarasota, Florida – It’s wonderful to have snow-birding (grand)parents. We don’t have as much time as we did last year, but there’s no way I’m passing up a *free* vacation in sunny Florida. One of the highlights of the week was…
Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve
Santa Elena, Costa Rica – We made our way from the tropical dry forests and beaches of Guanacaste to the mystical cloud forest around Santa Elena and Monteverde. We climbed some 4,662 feet, most of that on bumpy, windy, narrow…
Ecocentro Danaus
La Fortuna, Costa Rica – There must be hundreds of Mariposarios in Costa Rica. It seems that every town has a butterfly house, where you can witness the life cycle from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. Last year we went…
Habitat, Mass Audubon
Belmont, Mass – When we first moved to the Boston area, we rented an apartment in the fancy suburb of Belmont. “We live in the poor part of Belmont,” we used to joke about this town where the medium income…