Knots and Bolts Archive
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Fingerprinting the Fisher
Counting fishers in the rugged terrain of New York’s Adirondack Mountains is tough on scientists – and on the fishers. A new technique, which identifies fishers through prints of their tracks, has the potential to be easier on both the scientists and their subjects. A fisher, also popularly known as a fisher cat, is not a cat but a large… (more)
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Planning for an Invasion
“The arrival of the emerald ash borer is seemingly imminent, and there are no known methods of control,” warns Peter Smallidge of New York’s Cooperative Extension service at Cornell University, in a bulletin released this past fall. The emerald ash borer, a beetle native to Asia that first turned up in Detroit in 2002 and has been spreading ever since,… (more)
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An Icy Life on the St. John River
Furbish’s lousewort, Pedicularis furbishiae, from Kate Furbish’s Flora of MaineCourtesy: Kate Furbish Collection, George J. Mitchell, Dept.of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, METravel north beyond the rocky coastline of Maine, beyond Baxter State Park and the mighty Mt. Katahdin, through the industrial forests that have sustained generations of Maine loggers and their families, keep going north and… (more)
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Thrushes from Top to Bottom
Photo by Roger Irwin Hermit thrush Photo by Gerry LemmoSwainson’s thrushPhoto by Jim BlockVeeryPhoto by Mary HollandWood thrush Photo by Kent McFarland/VT Center for EcostudiesBicknell’s thrushUnless you are a fanatical birder, you may not be able to differentiate between the five species of brown thrushes found in northern New England and New York. All have wings and backs of varying… (more)
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The Northeast’s Most Wanted
Three potentially devastating insect pests – the Asian longhorned beetle, emerald ash borer, and hemlock woolly adelgid – are on the doorstep of the woods of northern New England and New York. Like the Chicago citizen who first spotted the Asian longhorned beetle in that city, readers of Northern Woodlands are informed, care about the woods, and – most importantly… (more)
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Coyote or Coydog?
“Coydog” is an established word in the North Country vernacular, but are there really half-coyote, half-domestic dog hybrids roaming our forests and fields? Wildlife biologists say no…probably. While it is physically possible for coyotes and domestic dogs to mate, controlled experiments by Walter and Helenette Silver in the 1960s suggested that coydog hybrids would stand little or no chance of… (more)
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Looking Through Jewelweed
Jewelweed has to be one of the wateriest plants in existence. If you doubt it, just hold some of it between yourself and a light source, preferably the sun. Even its thick main stems are so translucent you know for sure that as soon as the first frost sweeps down the valley, this gorgeous, juicy plant will be among the… (more)
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Red versus Sugar
There you are, leaning against a big maple in your sugarbush, drill and tap at the ready, when you think, “Wait a minute…is this a red maple or a sugar maple?” While maples in general are quite easy to distinguish from other forest trees (their twigs and bugs grow opposite one another, unlike any other common trees except the ashes,… (more)
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Hold that Embryo
In most of the animal kingdom, it’s the same story: egg meets sperm, embryo forms, and life emerges a set number of weeks afterwards. In humans, birth happens approximately 40 weeks after conception. In, say, cottontail rabbits, only about four weeks elapse between conception and birth, and in the course of a year, a female rabbit can mother six batches… (more)
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Tick or Treat
Last Halloween, biology students at U-32 High School in Montpelier, Vermont, got all decked out – not to go trick or treating – but in a search for deer ticks. They donned Tyvek protective suits as part of a survey of ticks at four popular recreation areas in central Vermont, in a study designed by their teacher, Maggie Desch, to… (more)