24. Cumberland Lodge Oak, Windsor Great Park

At the top of Green Hill Cemetery. The wonderful stone carver memorial stands to the right and, up the next hill in the distance, stands St Vincent de Paul.

Ever since we visited the Siskiyous back in 2023, I've wanted to return to explore the northern reaches of California, west of Mt. Shasta. This region - dominated by the Klamath Mountains - contains so many gems, including the Trinity Alps, Mt. Eddy, Tamarack Lake, Mt. Shasta, and a favorite that we've hiked several times: Castle Crags. @mini.turbodb enjoying herself in the granite wonderland of the Crags. After finding a route on Overland Trail Guides that Ben had put together - some 300 miles…

For the first-time traveler to Hawai'i, a word about the birds. There are two groups of birds, the species native to the Hawaiian Islands, and the introduced, or invasive species. There are also two groups of birds, the ones you are likely to see during your trip, and the ones you won't. It's unfortunate, but the two lists are pretty much the same. The native birds of the islands are under assault, and most of them never were a good fit for urban environments where island visitors spend most of…

Where: Terra Nova Rural Park, Richmond Nature House (Richmond), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)Weather: Sunny, 15–17°C We’re in the second half of October and still wearing shorts! Also: So many squirrels, a group of which can be known as a scurry. :themoreyouknow: Terra Nova View looking toward the North Shore mountains. We started at Terra Nova and I quickly made my airplane shot quota, then took a few more. Some distant clouds, mountains, and good light actually made a few of the shots…

#SilentSunday

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Colors of Lava and Black.’ See more responses here. I thought a collection of colorful lava fit the bill. These were taken on two of the trails in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, the Kau Desert Trail and the Puna Coast Trail. Finally, some red lava erupting from Kilauea volcano. I posted a few days ago (here) about the pressurized situation at the volcano when I visited last week. This is a screen shot from one of the live webcams at Kilauea (here).…

• 4-star hikes • 4 to 5 mile options • Easy | Gain 140 to 360 feet • Haverhill, MA | Northeast Region . The 1875 castle-like summer home crowns the park. Winnekenni Park is a scenic conservation area in Haverhill that features peaceful woodland trails, beautiful lake views, and a historic stone castle. We took a counterclockwise loop around Kenoza Lake starting from The Basin parking area. This route links the Dudley Porter Trail, the Shore Trail, and the Merrill Trail, using a safe roadside…

Bulbs- 480 of them, which I orderedfor planting en masse at the music school. Bulbs are relatively inexpensive (unless it's something rare) so you get a lot for your money. This lot came to £94.99 including delivery, that's 20p a bulb on average. I got Narcissus 'Tete-a-Tete', Crocus tommasinianus and Chionodoxa forbesii for spring and various Alliums for early summer: A. caeruleum, A. sphaeroephalon, A. hollandicum and A. moly.

Reading this week: Dark Voyage: An American Privateer’s War on Britain’s African Slave Trafe by Christian McBurney The central irony of the New River is that of course it is one of the oldest rivers. They explain this is the lovely video in the visitor’s center, though in the video they, for inexplicably humble reasons, like to emphasize it was really the Teays. Then again as I have pointed on this blog before in deference to Heraclitus, how old can any river be if no man can step in the same…

When I went birding at Kensington Metropark this weekend, I expected to see hickory, walnut, and maple trees changing into their brilliant fall color as well as gulls and waterfowl in Kent Lake. What I didn’t expect was not one, not two, but three colorful hot air balloons slowly making their way northeast over the lake. Caught me by surprise, since I knew hot air balloon festivals in southeast Michigan are typically in summer and sometimes in September. I searched online, but couldn’t find any…

Clear and still, the yard silvery with frost. Each morning the woods are more open, the patches of sky more numerous. The sun-flooded forest of winter doesn’t seem so far away now.

88 butterfly ventral view, Santa Rosa, Veracruz, MX, 5 Oct 2026 (photo by Kate St. John) 18 October 2026 As we walked the road from Santa Rosa to Cascada de Texolo on 5 October, we were impressed by the butterflies as well as the birds. I had been hoping to see “88” butterflies and my dream came true when one posed nicely for us near the waterfalls overlook. The dorsal side was much more difficult to photograph so when our guide Roland found a dead one, he opened it so we could see its back.…

October 17, 2026WE HAD A BIG COLD FRONT! I realize this is not always news for jubilation, but in Kansas City, in October, for bird lovers, it certainly is! We’ve been waiting! I was happy to pull out my mittens, my wool beanie, and my coat! This cold front did not disappoint; it’s been a magical week. I could never pick one favorite bird, but if I had to, it would be avocets!The cold front didn’t actually come through until Thursday night, but the birds often fly out ahead of the front, and…

📷 In Brittany, France, there’s an area they call ‘La Côte du Granit Rose’ – the Pink Granite Coast. I was happy to find a corner of the New South Wales coast that’s really quite like it. Birubi Point at Anna Bay, NSW.

In mid-September we spent a few days in the Italian Dolomites, our first visit despite living on the other side of the Alps in Munich. We travelled by train to Bolzano, then rented a car for the journey into the mountains. After a night in Santa Cristina Valgardena, we drove to nearby Ortisei and took the cable car up to Seceda. Seceda rises to 2,519 metres on the edge of the Puez-Odle Nature Park. Its southern slopes are mostly alpine pasture, but along the northern edge the ground drops…

A while back I suggested none of my readers had ever been to Folkes Lane Woodland, a nature reserve beside the M25 in outer Havering. Alas three of you said you had, the most convincing of whom said it was on one of his occasional jogging routes. So I'm going to try again with another London location I don't think any of you have ever been to... unless you live there. Again it's peripheral, again it's a scrubby nature reserve but this time it's in Bexley, not far from Crayford station.…

a raccoon I ran into on my walk home

• 4-star hike • 1 mile out-and-back • Easy | Gain 20 feet • New Boston, NH | Merrimack Region . There's no shortage of rocks in New Hampshire, but some are celebrated with greater reverence than others. Granite Staters still are having problems letting go of the Old Man Of The Mountain - the rocky feature that collapsed in 2003 - to the point that even now it's still celebrated on the state's vehicle license plate. Of course we're not about to suggest replacing the license plate with a rock…

Today i introduce another important milestone in my Musaicum satellite image mosaic series – the Musaicum East Africa. The Musaicum images are a series of regional satellite image mosaics based on Sentinel-2 data started in 2023 that are produced to a high quality standard. They offer unsurpassed quality in visual color depiction of Earth at this resolution range (10m) with a high degree of color consistency and an exceptionally low incidence of clouds. After previous mosaics of Europe, West…

21780 Coast Highway, Jenner, California 95450, United States

A Fiery Skipper Butterfly looking quite regal.

Autumn began almost a month ago, but where I live it doesn’t feel like the Autumn I know until about now. For the first time last night the cool winds blew in with gusto. I looked up at the moonlit tree tops as they bent violently; just as effortlessly as tall blades of grass in […]

I see a red tree and I want it painted black. I couldn’t help but think of that song when I saw this tree across the softball field when we were at one of the granddaughters’ softball games. It was the first fall like day. It was mostly cloudy and breezy with the temperatures only in the upper 40s to lower 50s. A pretty big shock after being in the 80s yesterday and a lot of last week. There were a few periods of brief sun while we were over there and the first one I noticed this lone bright…

• 3-star hike • 2 mile out-and-back • Easy | Gain 200 feet • Francestown, NH | Monadnock Region . Autumn low-flow at Brennan Falls. Located within the Schott Brennan Falls Preserve, just north of Francestown, Brennan Falls is a modest 20-foot waterfall that puts on a spectacular show during high-water events. Found at the end of a pleasant woodland hike just under a mile long, this trail is enjoyable in both summer and winter. Start your hike from Campbell Hill Road, following an unmaintained…

Overcast and cold. A white-throated sparrow sings in the wind. Kinglets forage, fluttering and wheezing, through the golden crown of a black birch.

American beech leaves turning golden yellow, 10 Oct 2026 (photo by Kate St. John) 17 October 2026 Leaves are changing color in Schenley Park. A lot of trees are still green because the oaks change later this month. A view of the wood on Falloon Trail, 10 Oct 2026 (photo by Kate St. John) Yellow is the main color right now: Beech (above) and buckeyes (below). Bottlebrush buckeye leaves turning yellow — veins still green, 14 Oct 2026 (photo by Kate St. John) Red is rare because we have few maples…