The migration of birds ranks among our planet’s most conspicuous, awe-inspiring natural phenomena. From nearly every corner of the globe, birds as diverse as hummingbirds and herons,…
Articles
Reunion
Every year just after Memorial Day, when the blackflies are at their cruelest, I take a Maine fishing trip with my brother Jake, his twin daughters, my two sons, and one of my daughters.…
Spotting Lady Beetles for Science
During our first autumn in Westford, Vermont, a wave of ladybugs attempted to make our home theirs for the winter. My wife expressed concern that our toddler might eat one. I replied,…
Orpine: Ornamental Gone Wild
My mother is a master gardener. In the spring, her beds are an explosion of showy blossoms, and in August, her gardens overflow with vegetables. Although we share a lifelong love of plants,…
Strengthening the Field: How Women are Making Strides in the Forestry Profession
Elisa Schine, a graduate student in forestry at the University of Maine, is accustomed to being in predominantly male academic and professional settings. Although forestry has become much more…
1,000 Words
On a spring day, Ithaca, New York–based photographer Melissa Groo watched a mother gray squirrel painstakingly move her kits to a new nest. “Grasping them in her mouth,” Groo…
Luthier Eric Bright Plays Melanie
Luthier Eric Bright crafted guitars from salvaged wood of Adirondack spruce “sink logs,” which had settled on the bottom of Schroon Lake during log drives in the 1800s. Bright…
The Autism Nature Trail: “A Welcoming Environment for Us All”
Opened in the autumn of 2021, the Autism Nature Trail at Letchworth State Park is breaking new ground for outdoor accessibility and education, especially for school-age children with autism.…
The Snorkeling Luthier of Schroon Lake
When I first heard of Eric Bright’s custom-built guitars, I knew I needed to find a way to see and play his instruments. I had been researching the period of intense logging that…
Research on the Adirondack Moose Population
By the mid-1800s, loss of forests to agricultural land and hunting had extirpated moose throughout much of the Northeast. With the reversion of large tracts of farmland to forest during the…
Amphibian Eggs in Vernal Pools
If you peer into the waters of a vernal pool in early spring, you may see the eggs of several amphibian species that use this special habitat to reproduce. But which eggs belong to which…
Behind the Pages
Approximately 50 people contribute to the words and images in each issue of the magazine. Here are some of our Spring 2023 contributors. {image2} Conrad Baker (“Autism Nature…
From the Center
Until we began working on this issue of the magazine, I had no idea that spotted salamanders are individually distinguishable by their spots. But they are, and what you see below are five…
An Introduction to Forest Carbon
Readers often express interest in forests’ capacity to absorb and store carbon, and in climate-friendly management practices. In this first installment of a four-part series supported by…
Cedar Swamp Magic
On my family’s 80-acre Christmas tree farm in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom was a large swamp populated by northern white cedar trees. The swamp was at the base of Mount Monadnock,…
Art Review: Carolyn Egeli
Carolyn Egeli is a painter’s painter. As the daughter of two successful artists, she was classically trained at home from a young age, as were her four siblings. But Egeli notes that for…
Eidolon
in memory of George MacArthur I stared at a lone white cedar this morning, astonished, so few of that height and girth left standing from when they were hewn by hand for railroad ties by…
Green Long-jawed Spiders
Winter rambles often take me to East Woods in South Burlington, Vermont. While birders gaze skyward, I find myself drawn to movement on the ground. Snow cover reduces invertebrate numbers, and…
Creating a Climate-Resilient Forest at Tug Hill
Just east of Lake Ontario and west of the Adirondacks lies the Tug Hill Plateau, a chunk of sedimentary rock that rises from an elevation of 250 feet at its base near the lake to 2,100 feet on…
Mount Washington Observatory: Measuring the “World’s Worst Weather”
Rising to an elevation of 6,288 feet, Mount Washington caps New Hampshire’s Presidential Range and is the highest peak in the Northeast. On a clear summer day, hordes of visitors flock…