Getting to Know the Neighbors

Welcome to my field naturalist project—an exploration of urban wildlife around New England

I’ve always admired urban wildlife—those animals who figure out how to live alongside us, and even thrive, whether we want them there or not. They’re roaming city parks, perching on chimneys, and hiding under parked cars. One of them is probably piling up nuts in my garage as I write.

Black bears, coyotes, and peregrine falcons are a few of the urban attention grabbers here in New England, and they’ve helped to launch a thousand neighborhood listservs: “Bear cubs in the maple behind #15!” But I’m just as big a fan of the animals who don’t get much respect. Opossums and beetles, turkey vultures and bats. The garter snake basking on the patio. The much-maligned house sparrow.

This newsletter is a tribute to the big and the small, the loved and the not-so-loved animals that we live with.

Is This Newsletter for You?

I want to have a better understanding of how the animals that I see every day adapt to living in concert with us. And I want to understand those that I don’t see, but I know are out there.

I wonder if you do, too?

I’m writing this newsletter for the animal-besotted, like me, and the merely animal curious. For my naturalist colleagues and for my neighbors. It’s completely free. Subscribe and you’ll get an email notifying you whenever a new article is waiting.

Every month I’ll publish a piece that looks closely at one of the species who shares my corner of Western Massachusetts—likely a species found all over New England, and beyond. I’ll report on how it uses its street smarts and what it needs to survive, and other questions, too. Like, are we making its life easier, or harder? Is it a newcomer, or has it been living here all along?

If you like, you can share in the comments’ section what you know. Or ask me questions. Or just report on a great sighting, kind of like the flurry of listserv messages circulating on my street this month about our resident bobcats.

My first post is coming up next week, and it’s about a favorite next-door-neighbor of mine: the red fox. I’d love to know what you think of it.

How I’m Adapting

After a two-part career—as a magazine editor then running an art museum—I set my laptop down in August 2023 and started working toward my field naturalist certificate. Most states offer a version of this master naturalist program, usually through their university systems, with the hopes of raising a well-informed army of community scientists, environmental educators, and climate activists.

Hiking with Dutch in the Hudson Valley

Mass Audubon launched the certificate program for the Commonwealth in 2018. When they offered it for the first time in Western Mass last year, I jumped. This newsletter is my service project. Many thanks to Kathy Dean of Trotting Fox who is providing me with wildlife expertise and patient guidance.

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Credit: Red squirrel photo by Sue Feldman