For decades, birdwatchers got little respect. Credit Jane Hathaway, Mr. Drysdale's secretary on TV's "The Beverly Hillbillies" back in the 1960s. (01/04/2009)

Each holiday season I recommend books and other gifts that might interest readers. (01/04/2009)

Several times each year I experience true fright in the woods. It only lasts a moment, but it's always heart-stopping. It happened again a few weeks ago on a cloudy afternoon. (01/04/2009)

What to do: Straddling corners of Westmoreland, Cambria and Somerset counties is a great little tract of public land that has something for just about everybody. (01/04/2009)

Zero, zip, zilch, nada -- number of laws regulating floating on creeks and rivers in an intertube in Pennsylvania, provided it's navigable public water (you can't float through private property (01/04/2009)