SHEFFIELD, Mass. — Rene Wendell has been around the woods more than a few times. The 94-year-old Pittsfield native and former tracker and taxidermist is an avid collector of all things wild including flies and beetles and, of course, several decades of memories. 

"I grew up around Burbank Park," he said in a phone interview. "As a kid, the woods were my playground and I was obsessive about animals. That was 70 or 80 years ago, can you imagine? It's been very interesting, I've seen a lot of changes here over the

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GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — Late-night NBC talk show host Jimmy Fallon was hitting the slopes at Ski Butternut last week and tweeting about his vacation in the Berkshires.

"Learning to ski at the fiercest and coolest mountain - Butternut," tweeted the "Fever Pitch" star @jimmyfallon. A video taken by his wife, Nancy Juvonen, shows he may need a few more lessons.

The stand-up comedian grew up over the border in Saugerties, N.Y., and started down the entertainment path after winning an impersonation contest at a Poughkeepsie comedy club.

He uploaded pictures of his

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GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — Saturday morning, while many of us are still plastered to the bed (or plastered, period), a hardy troupe of South County folks will be up with the sun to brave the elements.

 Their mission: counting birds.

These dedicated bird watchers and citizen scientists are doing their part for the National Audobon Society’s 111th annual Christmas Bird Count, which began on Dec. 14, 2010,  and will continue through Jan. 5, 2011. The purpose of the count is to help researchers and conservation biologists study the status of bird populations in North America and in

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SHEFFIELD, Mass. — The Friday after Thanksgiving was not a day marked by a manic shopping frenzy and a food hangover; at least not for me. I did some of my shopping on Wednesday; enjoyed a late lunch, navigated the packed aisles of the grocery store for pecans and corn syrup. I had other plans, more adventurous plans for Friday (night): owl hunting.

Mind you, I did not literally go hunting for owls with a rifle. I’m pretty sure that’s very illegal and very not in keeping with my preservationist, nature-is-god sort of approach to life. The “Owl Prowl,” which is an

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Something new has hit the real estate market and I'm not sure whether to be excited or alarmed. The austere 1860 (although the original house may have been built in the 1700s) farmhouse that is home to the Nature Conservancy and the Sheffield Land Trust is being sold through Berkshire Property Agents for $525,000. The three-bedroom, 4,600 square foot house is also attached to nearly 27 acres of protected land on Legeyt Road, prime farm country, and on this November morning the land and the lifestock (mostly dairy cows) was shrouded in mist.

The house itself has three bedrooms and there are

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