LYME, N.H. – Frogs have hopped about Earth since before the time of the dinosaurs, and it shows. Celebrated for their amphibious lifestyle and cacophonous choruses, the long arc of frog evolution has yielded other awesome and efficient adaptations in organs from their lungs to their skin. Research on green[Read More…]

READING – In the cosmic dance of heavenly bodies, no phenomenon possesses the drama of a solar eclipse, when the moon passes directly between the sun and earth. In the path of totality, where the moon completely obscures our home star, the world falls into an ominous darkness that has[Read More…]

by Jackie Bussjaeger ST. PAUL, MN. – Finding a suitable mate in the wild is no simple matter. It’s an extra complicated affair for one familiar resident of the woods and underbrush. With its chunky build, boldly striped head, and namesake white throat, the white-throated sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) is among[Read More…]

READING – Boiling maple sap into syrup is a time honored tradition in the Northeast, to the olfactory delight of anyone who has spent time in a steamy sugarhouse while inhaling the sweet maple scent of the season. It used to be that trees were tapped in late March, and[Read More…]

by Jen Weimer There’s a new invasive insect zigzagging its way across North America. First reported by citizen scientists in Quebec in 2020, the elm zigzag sawfly (Aproceros leucopoda) has now spread to North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont. This new pest, which is native[Read More…]

by Laurie D. Morrissey HOPKINTON, N.H. – In a big mast year for oak trees, it seems like there’s a constant barrage of acorns thwacking roofs, parked cars, and sometimes unsuspecting humans. These falling nuts can seem a nuisance. But when I look closely at a little acorn with its[Read More…]

READING – When it comes to winter in the North Country, brown is not beautiful. Climate change has brought sudden and extreme fluctuations in weather along with a dramatic decline in the amount of snowfall that blankets the ground. This is especially marked in the Northeast, where winter is warming[Read More…]

by Susan Shea BROOKFIELD – Last February, several evening grosbeaks, which we rarely see here, visited our feeder. About the size of robins, the males were yellow with black and white wings, a black tail, and a bright yellow band above the eyes. The females were silver-gray with tinges of[Read More…]

by Rachel Sargent Mirus DUXBURY – Bright red, soft, and velvety: no, I’m not describing a Valentine’s Day decoration, but a red velvet mite. Built like eight-legged, scarlet Beanie Babies, red velvet mites are hard to miss, even though most of them are no bigger than an eighth of an[Read More…]

by Timothy Loftus You know Orion always comes up sideways. Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains, And rising on his hands, he looks in on me… WEBSTER, Mass. – So wrote Robert Frost in his poem, “The Star-splitter.” The aesthetic wonder of this easy-to-find constellation and its[Read More…]

by Michael J. Caduto READING – In mid-winter 1988, I went contra-dancing at the Congregational Church in Lyme, N.H. During intermission, I joined other dancers who stepped out of the overheated hall into a star-studded night alive with shimmering waves of color, from blue to pinkish-red. We stood in awe,[Read More…]

by Susan Shea RANDOLPH – Most winters, a few sparrows visit my yard, feeding on the seeds I scatter on the ground near my bird feeder. These particular sparrows have long tails, rusty crowns and eye-lines on their gray heads, and a distinctive dark breast spot. Looking more closely, I’ve[Read More…]