by Colby Galliher NEW ENGLAND – It’s deep in winter, and a nor’easter is dumping snow outside. In between the howling winds you hear a boom! Maybe a heap of snow fell from the roof, you think, or a giant icicle crashed from the eaves. A few minutes later, another[Read More…]

by Michael J. Caduto READING – One winter day, while teaching a winter ecology class, I pulled on waders and rubber gloves, grabbed a catch net, and led my “Minibeasts of the Stream” program, discovering a rich variety of insects in the frigid waters of Kedron Brook in South Woodstock.[Read More…]

by Rebecca Perkins Hanissian LYME, N.H. — Of all life’s synergies, I appreciate most the one between my propensity for domestic procrastination and my love of moving through the outdoors: countless adventures are born of it. During a late November weekend, when faced with a day spent winterizing our home,[Read More…]

THETFORD – In winter, river otters head upstream into the uplands, seeking areas of fast-moving water that remain open, – at least open enough for an otter to slip into a stream in pursuit of fish. You might catch a brief glimpse of an otter along one of these smaller[Read More…]

by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul FRANCONIA, N.H. – I’ve always loved the idea of watching the sky for shooting stars. But I’m much more likely to be up to watch the sunrise than I am to stay awake past midnight, when most meteor showers happen. Lucky for me, the upcoming Geminid[Read More…]

by Susan Shea BROOKFIELD – For thousands of years, people have decorated their homes with evergreen boughs, a symbol of eternal life, during the darkest time of the year around the winter solstice and Christmas. In addition to common species such as spruce and fir, I’ve noticed another evergreen in[Read More…]

by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul FRANCONIA, N.H. – If you are prone to looking up as you walk (or pedal or drive) among trees, you may have noticed a bumper crop of cones clinging to the highest branches of white pine trees this summer and fall. Around my yard, the red[Read More…]

by Doug Facey BURLINGTON – During the autumn months, many birds migrate from their summer breeding grounds in the Northeast to warmer wintering areas south of our region. Migratory birds include many species of raptors and waterfowl, which we often notice because of the birds’ large size and their tendency[Read More…]

by Jenna O’del COVENTRY, R.I. – Of all the non-native, invasive plants in the Northeast, buckthorns are among the most hated by forest stewards. There are two types of invasive buckthorn in our region: glossy buckthorn (Frangula alnus) and common buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica), also called European buckthorn. Both plants grow[Read More…]

by D. Glenn Miller CONNECTICUT — In late autumn, well past the showy blossoms of summer, after even fall’s late bloomers have faded and the trees have dropped their leaves, there is one shrubby plant still putting on a flower show: American witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana). Four slender, wrinkly yellow[Read More…]

by Rachel Sargent Mirus EAST CORINTH – “Look!” I exclaimed, bending to examine a pair of half-inch-tall, bright orange, club-shaped mushrooms. Kneeling in the leaf litter, with my 2-year-old son watching in puzzlement, I carefully scraped away at the base of the colorful clubs. Just beneath the soil was a[Read More…]

by Susan Shea RANDOLPH – On an October day years ago, my husband and I were canoeing on a pond in the Green Mountain National Forest. We heard crashing in the bushes along the shoreline just before a magnificent bull moose with large antlers appeared. He plunged into the water[Read More…]