Trying to Save a Refuge for Birds

written for The New York Times IN the mid-1950’s, Roger Tory Peterson moved to a quiet hill in Old Lyme, where, until he died in 1996, he worked intensely on the bird guides for which he was famous. Last spring, after Mr. Peterson’s wife, Virginia, died,...

Bracelet Bears Legacy of Hope and Grief

written for The Day After the 25th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, I went looking for my old prisoner-of-war bracelet. It was tucked in a folder of childhood papers. The stainless steel band with “Capt. Richard G. Morin, 12-20-68” looks exactly as it...

A Unique Talent for Being Herself

Written for The Day The death of the Nut Museum curator came very quietly on Jan. 28 in a nursing home a few minutes’ drive from the mansion in Old Lyme, Connecticut, she had still hoped to reclaim. But Elizabeth Tashjian, the painter and sculptor who became...

A 1998 Warning About Polar Bears

written for The Day Mystic—The top polar bear expert in North America told an audience of scientists that global warming is hurting polar bears in western Hudson Bay. The 1,000-pound bears rely on a window of several weeks in the early spring to lumber across the ice...
A Frenzy for Glass Eels

A Frenzy for Glass Eels

Glass eels, or elvers, from a seafood retailer’s website written for The Day In the middle of the night in Millville, N.J., someone stole a van‰ÛÓnot for the van, but for the tanks stashed in back, which were set up to hold thousands of baby American eels. When...