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In 2016 I’m doing a 365 Nature project. Each day of the year I will post something here about nature. It may be any format, a photo, video, audio, sketch or entry from my nature journal. It could be a written piece. Each day I will connect to nature in some way and share it here by the end of that day. You can keep up-to-date by subscribing to the RSS feed or be notified by email. See all the 365 Nature posts.


My daughter is only four, but I’m unexpectedly feeling the effects of empty nest syndrome today. This morning I went out to see the robin chicks and the nest appears to be empty, I think they must had fledged last night or this morning. This is only one day after I noticed the Bewick’s Wren’s nest quiet and empty as well. Both nests are now empty and I regret not spending more time watching them. The time passed so quickly, one day there were new chicks and today they’re all gone. The robins are still around in the front yard, but I didn’t see the fledglings yet. I’ll keep my eyes open and try to find them, I hope they stayed in the yard. The Bewick’s Wrens had no such decency and I haven’t seen a wren in our yard in a couple of days, although I think I heard one singing in our backyard early this morning.

I ordered a new camera, my first DLSR upgrade and I’m impatiently waiting for it today after ordering it over a month ago. It’s the new Nikon D500 and the early reviews are excellent so I can’t wait to start shooting this afternoon. It was very inconsiderate of all the birds to fledge before my camera arrived.

The good thing is the weather has been much more typical of our May climate lately with good, heavy rain, dramatic clouds and breaks of sunshine. It’s been just the right temperature, not too hot and not cold. And I haven’t had to water all week thanks to the rain and the plants are all growing steadily.

I’m also happy because we had a new door installed in our dining room where there used to be a wall and it’s finally finished. Now we can open the double doors right out into the backyard and enjoy all the nature. I’ve wanted to make that happen since we moved into this house nearly four years ago.

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Kelly Brenner

Kelly Brenner

Kelly Brenner is a naturalist, writer and artist based in Seattle. She is the author of THE NATURALIST AT HOME: Projects for Discovering the Hidden World Around Us and NATURE OBSCURA: A City’s Hidden Natural World from Mountaineers Books, a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards and Pacific Northwest Book Awards. She writes articles about natural history and has bylines in Crosscut, Popular Science, National Wildlife Magazine and others. On the side she writes fiction.

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