SHARON — Four animal-loving children and their five chaperones learned just about everything there is to know about baby animals at the Sharon Audubon Center on Saturday, May 7. The program was led by Environmental Education Intern Sarah Conley, who started the afternoon off by introducing the children to the many animals that are housed in the main building. In the first part of the program, the children (and the adults) learned what to do if they find a baby bird on the ground out in the woods.Conley refuted the rumor that baby birds and eggs should not be touched for fear that their parents would abandon them. It turns out that birds don’t have a highly developed sense of smell well, and probably can’t tell if there’s human scent on their babies.“If you see a baby bird or an egg, you can put it back in the nest,” Conley assured them. However, if the bird is slightly older and is in the weaning stage (when the parent lets its young start to take care of itself) it’s best to leave it alone, even if it looks like it’s in trouble. “Most of the time, it’s best to let them learn to be a grown-up bird on their own,” Conley advised. She then switched from birds to baby mammals. While baby birds can be touched by humans, she warned, it’s not a good idea to touch baby mammals. They tend to have a better sense of smell and the scent of humans can be detected on the babies by the parents. The children then played a guessing game, trying to name the baby animals shown in a series of photos that Conley held up. Some were more difficult, as the babies appeared very different from their full-grown parents. The last photo shown in the guessing game was an easy one — a baby deer, or a fawn. Conley said that young deer are often left alone for hours at a time while their mothers are searching for food. The fawns will wait quietly and not move while the parents are gone. While an onlooker may think that the fawn has been abandoned, it most likely hasn’t been. “If it’s not making any noise, it’s alright. It’s probably just waiting for its mother to come back,” Conley said. Conley then took the group out for the main event: a walk around the Audubon Center to try and spot some baby animals. While not too many babies were seen (it’s still early in the season) the group counted several nests, and even saw a mother goose sitting on her nest near a pond. The group also saw frogs in a small pond, several full-grown birds and a chipmunk (which followed the group around for a while). After the walk around the property, the children got to explore the Audubon aviary, where the birds in rehabilitation are kept. There were vultures, a raven, a bald eagle, a red-tailed hawk, a kestrel and many other species. The group also got to watch the birds get a meal of raw fish scraps, which are donated to the Audubon by the Sharon Farm Market.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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