NEW ENGLAND – On a recent walk through a woodland strewn with underfoot color, my rapt gaze floated, like a bumblebee queen on her first foray after winter, from trout lilies to trilliums to spring beauties, all blooming across the forest floor and exulting in the sun shining through the[Read More…]
The Outside Story
Bobolink is grassland bird in reverse tuxedo
MILLBROOK, N.Y. – If you live near a large meadow, hayfield, or grassland, you may have recently noticed some bubbly robotic noises emanating from those areas. It might sound like an overexcited android, but the real source is a medium-sized songbird, the bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus). One of the few avian[Read More…]
Tussock Cottongrass is champion of bogs, alpine areas
BURLINGTON – A bog is a special natural community, characterized by deep, wet and acidic soil below an open sky. Soft sphagnum mosses squish underfoot, dominating the surface of the bog and making up the mostly undecomposed organic soil below. The ground springs up and down with each step, a[Read More…]
Holding space for songbirds
DEER ISLE, Me. – One of the great joys of early May in the Northeast is the dawn-break aubade of songbirds returning to summer habitats or passing through to their nesting grounds in higher latitudes. Mornings that only a month ago were silent, save the croaking crows and shrieking blue[Read More…]
Ticks re-emerge and reveal changing climate
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION – With each spring comes a renewed need to be vigilant for ticks. Over the past several decades, many tick populations and the pathogens they carry have expanded globally, driven by climate change, land-use shifts, and growing host populations. In New England, we are now at the[Read More…]
This Spring, look up for the bees
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION – The changing colors of fall leaves is undeniably one of the great spectacles of the northern hardwood forests. But consider for a moment the other end of the growing season from early April through late May, the color palette of our local forests changes at breathtaking[Read More…]
Observe early-blooming flowers for plant-pollinator interactions
WHITE RIVER JUCNTION – It’s a common assumption that dandelions are the only available floral resources for pollinators in the spring. They just happen to be the flowers we see most often in our lawns and gardens. But many other species bloom in early spring (including our spring ephemerals. Some[Read More…]
Spring ephemerals and the forest
Every year I know that spring has arrived when it’s time for my family to forage for ramps on a two-acre patch on the hill above my house. We have just a few weeks to enjoy their spiciness before they disappear from the landscape, along with other spring ephemerals. While[Read More…]
Paddling floodplain forests for hidden highlights of mud season
MONTPELIER – By early April I start to get impatient for full-blown spring. I’m ready for the treetops to be full of warblers and the understory to be crowded with blooming flowers. But when mud season lingers, I pick up my paddle. Kayaking and canoeing in floodplain forests is a[Read More…]
Why did the frog cross the road?
NORWICH – In spring, when temperatures rise above 40 degrees Fahrenheit and usher in gentle rains, a plethora of life emerges from the forest. Last year, I went out on such a night to catch the spring migration of amphibians. I could feel the rain coming before it hit the[Read More…]
Hummingbird migration map available now
U.S. – Hummingbird Central offers crowd-sourced interactive maps tracking the northward migration of hummingbirds each spring. They had been sighted as far north as south-eastern Pennsylvania on April 4. Tracking of the annual spring hummingbird migration is done with the help of viewers as they submit their first hummingbird sightings[Read More…]
Cellar holes and old foundations
BURLINGTON – As I kneel digging in the dirt of the gently collapsing stone foundation, birds singing, knees aching and dirt permanently embedded under my fingernails, I try to imagine life here in Vershire, in the 1880s. I’ve been excavating the bottle caches and midden heaps of this foundation for[Read More…]
