As the rising sun chases away the glittering stars, a slinking figure moves within the shadows of the trees with grace born only of felines. A small herd of mule deer feed in an adjacent clearing, oblivious to the impending danger. Then, with a flurry of action, the cat rushes from its hiding place amidst the shadows, toward a yearling buck feeding near the tree line. The buck turns to flee when he realizes the danger, but with a great leap the cat is upon him. Within a split second the buck

I first visited Glacier National Park in June. Though winter had only recently loosened its grip on the Crown of the Continent, there were blue skies and sunshine as I hiked up a high-elevation glacial basin. The temperature was a balmy 60 degrees.

Walking through the woods recently, I saw a red squirrel digging in the litter of the forest floor. I assumed it was burying a pine cone, but on closer inspection I found a piece of mushroom. Little did I know I was witnessing a process critical to the survival of a forest.

Bobcats are relatively common in patchy habitats all across the U.S., but we don’t see them often because they are crepuscular or nocturnal and well camouflaged. But after a recent bobcat sighting, I'll be on the lookout for bobcats much more than I have before.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever been on a river, at any time of year, and not seen a Great Blue Heron . They seem to stand as solitary sentries on the rivers of Montana, but also on rivers from Canada to South America.

Here's a topic you might not be thinking much about right now. Remember all those colorful butterflies that visited your garden just a few short months ago? They seemed the very definition of summer. What's happened to those delicate creatures?

On a recent early winter morning I am cross-country skiing along the trails at Lolo Pass in the Bitterroot Mountains. As I glide along Packer Meadows in the breaking dawn, I think about early summer when this is a wet meadow awash with a sea of camas blooms. The camas, or Camassia quamash , produce blue-violet six-petaled flowers on stalks rising above the main stems. They bloom so profusely and in such numbers that they can look like a pool of water.

This morning, the valley sits under a blanket of fresh snow, and another few inches is forecast for tomorrow. I love the first day or two after a snowfall when everything is still white and clean, before the snow’s presence in town becomes more of a hindrance than a facelift.

Every autumn I begin to wonder – where do all the bugs go? Unlike people, and other warm-blooded critters that can maintain a consistent internal temperature, insects cannot. So, you might wonder, what do insects do to survive the cold?

One of my favorite places to look in the forest is up. I love the way trees frame patches of sky, and how rays of sun slide over the branches and slant into pockets of darkness. On a recent stroll through the woods near Echo lake, I found myself, as usual, looking up. I saw mostly fir and birch trees, and I took their narrow trunks and modest heights as signs of a young forest. But it was a much older tree that caught my eye.