View the May 2023 Nature Friend Study Guide
Shorebirds
Pictures & Poems, March 2023
View the March 2023 Nature Friend Magazine
Big Day Birding
Canada Warbler. Photo © Dogwood Ridge. On May 13, 2022, my brother and I, along with five others, joined my grandfather on a big day birding trip. My grandfather, Andrew Troyer, keeps an annual big...
Spring Migration Photo Contest Honorable Mentions
Least Bittern. Photo © Peter Shirk, 16. Barn Swallow. Photo © Alva Steury Jr. Rufous Hummingbird. Photo © Alvin Clair Auker. Great Blue Heron. Photo © Gabriel Schneider. Pileated Woodpecker. Photo ©...
The Day and the Crown
Spring Migration Bird Contest 1st Place
Favorite Focus, July 2022
Study Guide Puzzles, June 2022
In Search of Spring
Great Horned Owlets. Photo © Kevin Shank. My sister Malinda and I teach in a school in northern Indiana. One evening last spring, we visited one of the school families. We knew they often went back...
Spring Dog Birding
American Woodcock. Photo © Kevin Shank. The second week of May came, and so did the warblers and other migrating species. I had spring fever. Spring, Galen, warblers—all three—go hand in hand, so...
Exploring Nature, May 2022
Ruffed Grouse eggs hatch in Virginia in late May. You may see them cross a forest road, if you drive through their habitat.May is peak migration for shorebirds at Cape May, New Jersey.The spring...
Exploring Nature, March 2022
Snow trillium. Photo © Kevin Shank. Snow trilliums bloom mid-March to early April. This trillium was photographed near Franklin, West Virginia, March 21.Sharp-tailed Grouse are displaying on...
A Day to Remember
The hands of the clock showed 11:30 p.m. on December 4, 2020, when I was shaken free of the irrational nonsense that filled my dreams and was brought me back into the world of wakefulness, which was...
Crocodiles
A crocodile basks in the sun on the banks of the Nile River. He has just eaten, so he will probably not need to hunt again for a long time. He sleeps, undisturbed. He looks like his name—crocodile....
