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This year, Monday, 21 December, is the winter solstice, often known as the shortest day of the year, at least for those in the northern hemisphere.  The winter solstice in 2009 will feature nine hours and sixteen minutes of daylight in New York City, with the sun rising at 7:16 AM and setting at 4:32 [...]

The first day of winter, I’ve learned, carries a lot more significance when one lives in a place that experiences a real winter. By real, of course, I mean a frigid, intemperate, icy season accompanied by snowfalls measured not in inches but in feet. Welcome to my winter in western New York! Since I was [...]

Winter gets a bad rap, not just for inclement, often intolerable weather but also for an apparent lack of biodiversity. True, most vegetation in temperate zones shuts down but as far as bird species go, the shorter months tend to be long on birds we just don’t see during the rest of the year. Here [...]

Today, the winter solstice, December 22, is the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. It is also, despite the quantity of snow on the ground outside of my house as I type this, the first day of winter. That’s the bad news. The good news is that every day from now until [...]