WHITE RIVER JUNCTION – Vermont Center for Ecostudies (VCE) bee biologist Spencer Hardy first met Bernie Paquette at the 2019 Jericho-Underhill Christmas Bird Count. Paquette had long since retired from his career at IBM in Essex Junction, but had only recently caught the naturalist bug at a 2016 walk hosted[Read More…]
The Outside Story
Lingering Loon Chicks
WASHINGTON, D.C. – At this point in the season, most migrating songbirds and raptors have already left. But on lakes and ponds across New England, some loons are still fishing and paddling. Loon parents may set off for the ocean before their young can fly, so it’s not uncommon to[Read More…]
A Quick Trip to Birding Paradise
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION – As a conservation scientist focused on birds and their habitats, I’ve worked and sometimes lived on Hispaniola, the island that the Dominican Republic (DR) and Haiti share, since the mid-1990s. Accompanied by local colleagues who have taught me much, I’ve crisscrossed the island, hiking and birding[Read More…]
Gyttja: The Mud Beneath Us Reveals the Past
WEST LEBANON, N.H. – Most people know that the bottom of a northern lake or large pond is a mucky, muddy mess of weeds, decayed leaves, some rocks, and a few crayfish to avoid stepping on while wading. This area is known as the lake shelf. Just beyond the shelf[Read More…]
Frightening fungi
VERMONT – October and fall mushroom season is upon us, and plenty of Vermont fungi are adding to the spooky Halloween vibes. While carved jack o’lanterns are lighting porches and front steps, their mushroom counterparts illuminate the forests with an eerie glow. The bright pumpkin orange Omphalotus illudens, or Eastern Jack[Read More…]
Nematode nemesis: hidden world of carnivorous fungi
LOWELL, Mass. – In darkness, a wormlike creature squirms. A tiny nematode weaves its way between grains of rock and particles of organic matter, through inverted forests of tree roots. It follows what it thinks is a pheromone trail, pausing to inspect a droplet poised on the tip of a[Read More…]
Not So Bird-Brained: Avian Tool Use
WASHINGTON, D,C. – On an otherwise unremarkable day in 2023, Jason Love and his colleagues were gathering in a parking lot when they saw something that, as far as we know, no one had ever seen before. Love, the associate director of the Highlands Biological Station in North Carolina, and[Read More…]
Black Locust: an invasive with roots?
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The coming of autumn often makes trees harder to identify, but sometimes, it does the opposite. The black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) is a case in point. In summer, its bluish-green, oval-shaped compound leaves could easily be confused with those of the honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos), a[Read More…]
Loon population doing well, still facing threats
VERMONT – Loons are doing really well in Vermont. It is hard to imagine with all the threats they face that the overall loon population has recovered, for now. Back in 1983, only seven loon pairs nested in all of Vermont. In 2025, the Vermont Center for Ecostudies (VCE) Loon[Read More…]
In the footsteps of a chipmunk
SHAWANGUNK, N.Y. – As autumn nears, I find myself returning to botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer’s line in “Gathering Moss” where she describes ecological succession as “a tale of the interwoven fates of mosses, fungi, and the footfall of chipmunks.” The phrase evokes the quiet, entangled choreography of life in transition.[Read More…]
Finding the Pink Star Caterpillar
DUXBURY – When I imagine scientists discovering new animals, I picture them traveling to far-off jungles or remote mountaintops, not investigating local roadsides, utility cuts or other edge spaces of human habitation. Yet late last summer, naturalists with The Caterpillar Lab in Swanzey, N.H., found an unknown caterpillar on an[Read More…]
Sumac galls have ancient association
MILLBROOK, N.Y. – The staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) is a ubiquitous shrub of human-impacted northeastern habitats. Sumac stands occur along most highways and county roads, as well as in disturbed areas and abandoned fields transitioning to shrubland. With the onset of late summer’s cooler nighttime temperatures and shorter days, staghorn[Read More…]
