There are times when a person can learn a great deal about life by shutting up and listening. Just as it takes skill and experience to be a good storyteller, it is equally as valuable to be a good listener. Much can be learned from looking at life from other peoples viewpoint. There may be truths in their experiences that you have not noticed.

In leading up to my explanation of pollination, I ask the kindergartners why bees visit flowers. 'Because they like to' is what a little boy tells me.

In the middle of discussing the food pyramid, and how the cycle is repeated when the animals at the top of the pyramid die and their tissue is returned to mineral elements, I ask the kids what happens when the animals die, where do they go? 'They go to heaven' a little girl shouts out several times.

Walking on the beach in Monterey Bay, a middle age man sees me with my camera with my daughters, who are collecting the multitude of sand dollars visible during the early morning low tide. He stops and points out a California sea lion who has come up on the beach. He tells me that is not a common occurrence and it would make a good picture. On his way back he stops and chats for a few minutes. He tells me how he has seen many dolphins this summer. He says that sometimes they play in the surf and ride the waves into shore. He tells me that when the sun is going down it backlights the dolphins in the waves and it looks like they are glowing.

A group of kids want to show me a caterpillar they found at the end of our nature walk. I follow them over and they point out their treasure : a large green caterpillar with a single black ring around the front part of his body. When the kids shake the leaf he is on he sticks out two long antenna like projections - possibly some sort of defense. It is beautiful, something I have not seen before.

I am busy watching the bear and the coyotes in the distance with binoculars. My daughter Amy says she can see a brand new baby buffalo, over by those trees 150 yards away. I say no, there are no babies there. I look and see she is right, there is a baby still wet from its birth. The mother has not dropped the afterbirth yet. We did not notice it when we first arrived on our hillside overlook. It may have just been born. Amy is proud of her discovery.

At the end of a nature program a lady about my age walks with me a while. She tells me she likes some of my stories about kids and nature and the sense of wonder. In her quiet calm voice she tells me how her parents were lovers of nature, and some of her best memories of youth were when her parents shared that with her.

She explains that they did not have much money at that time. For entertainment her parents used to sit with her and her brother on the porch at their home in south Florida. They would turn out the lights and quietly in the dark they would watch the wild animals crossing through their front yard. They saw wild pigs and black panthers. She tells me that she will never forget those nights, that they meant a lot to her. The black panthers are now gone from that area.

The overnight snowfall has covered everything - cottonwoods, birch, alder, willow, goldenrod, meadow brome. A red fox silently comes down the trail and stops to look at something in the brush. He is the only color in the white landscape.

My border collies and I stand quietly to watch him pass. We listen to the peaceful morning song of two chickadees in the dim light.