The Outside Story

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.…

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…

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…

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…

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…

“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,…

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…

In May of this year, when a cottonwood measuring nearly 3 ½ feet in diameter and more than 100 feet tall fell across a trail in the Saint Michael’s College Natural Area, I saw the…

As autumn begins and insect populations dwindle, many waterfowl species rely increasingly on seeds as a food source. Common buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis), with its spherical bouquets…

I recently found myself sitting in the crawl space of my house holding a bioluminescent mushroom. I’d been on a quest to find one of these light-producing mushrooms and, on my birthday,…

In northern New England, acorns ripen in late summer and normally drop from oak trees from September through October. They may fall earlier, however, for a host of reasons, from eager…

On a recent hike up Eagle Mountain in Milton, Vermont, we climbed to a ledge overlooking Lake Champlain. Turkey vultures soared overhead, tilting back and forth on the breeze. A sheer cliff…

Until 65 million years ago, huge reptiles dominated our planet – and every summer I think they might be making a comeback. The sight of a snapping turtle hauling herself onto a sunny log…

A caterpillar eats and eats, becomes a chrysalis, and after a period of metamorphosis emerges as a beautiful butterfly! Except, sometimes…it doesn’t quite work that way.…

It’s evening, and you’re in the forest. You close your eyes and inhale the sharp, sweet, turpentine scent of pine. The air is still, yet the branches overhead seem to nod at your…

The doodlebug waits. It is patient. It is silent. And it is hidden under a fine layer of dry, loose, sandy soil at the bottom of a small conical pit. Soon, a wandering ant will slip down the…

For most of the year, it’s hard to find a pond without at least a few mallards swimming around. These ducks, with their green-headed drakes and streaky brown hens, are among the most…

At first, I suspected it was the deer that had almost completely defoliated the northern spicebush sapling I had planted just weeks earlier. Only days prior, it had been brimming with new…

Named for their polka-dot-like markings, spotted turtles have declined throughout most of their range, which stretches from Maine south along the Atlantic coastal plain to northern Florida,…

Spittlebugs are the color of a new spring leaf, their bodies both tiny and so fat that you hardly notice their six miniature legs underneath. This plumpness makes them an appetizing snack for…