It’s the end of an era. After 25 years educating and entertaining our readers, Francie Von Mertens — the “Backyard Birder” herself — is hanging up her pen. Her bi-weekly column spanned the course of four presidencies, a poetic ode to the outdoors threaded with facts, trends and observations of the winged world, with some gentle chiding to do the right thing sprinkled here and there.
We’ll still look to her to identify flora and fauna, winged or otherwise, and we expect plenty of her contributions as co-chair of the Peterborough Conservation Commission. But the Birder column comes home to roost just one more time in this Thursday’s Arts section.
Fortunately, we live in a region that boasts a wealth of informed, creative outdoorsy folks, and we’ve got two of them on tap to pick up where the Backyard Birder left off. Just as Francie promised in her inaugural column 25 years ago, it’s yet again a new world for the birders and nature-lovers among us.
Harris Center stalwarts Susie Spikol of Hancock and Brett Amy Thelen of Harrisville will take over the column and write for us once a month on our Green Living page, which appears the fourth Tuesday of each month. You may have seen Thelen shepherding salamanders across busy roads or tracking the nesting habits of local nighthawks, and you’ve probably seen Spikol teaching children about the wonders of nature or exhibiting her samurai frogcatching techniques. And perhaps you’ve read their work in these very pages or as part of the Outside Story series — see harriscenter.org/about-us/reports-newsletters to read those. Now, we’ve got their exclusive work to ourselves, and we’re happy to share that with our readers.
We salute Francie and thank her for her quarter-century of entertaining, informative columns and look forward to the new world with Susie and Brett. Come along on the journey, readers!