HOPKINTON, N.H. – My first sighting of a cecropia moth was from a boat. It was a sunny morning and I was paddling along the lakeshore, expecting to see familiar birds. Instead, my eye was drawn to a large brown spot covering an alder leaf. My first thought was that[Read More…]
The Outside Story
A meal worth the sting
NEW ENGLAND – One predator-prey interaction always leaves me torn. Birds sparked my love for the natural world years ago, but after my interest lapsed during adolescence, bees brought me back into the fold. So I found myself split between two allegiances the first time I watched a bird, in[Read More…]
Glow-worms, Blinkers, Ghosts: hidden diversity of fireflies
LOWELL, Mass. – In the deepening twilight, the pines edging my backyard merge into a wall of shadow. I hold my breath, staring hard into the darkness. Will they come? No matter how many times I repeat this ritual, I’m never sure. But then the magic happens. A little greenish[Read More…]
Crayfish are tiny predators with big impact
BARTON – Crayfish fill my childhood memories. I spent summers playing in streams, flipping over rocks, and if I was lucky, catching glimpses of these mysterious little creatures. Most crayfish are nocturnal and dart backwards to escape danger. An early summer morning last year at Crystal Lake State Park, near[Read More…]
Wild oats is a bashful bellwort for spring
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…]
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…]
