Blog and News

Jewelry artist Lucy Golden became immersed in the outdoors at a young age. She and her two sisters spent their childhood roaming the woods and fields of Pennsylvania, where her father was a…

This whiplash weather we’ve been experiencing has made for some treacherous walking conditions up in our woods. A recent snow and thaw cycle produced layers of ice and powder –…

Pam Ames has been an educator for more than 30 years, the last 13 of them at Killingly Intermediate School in northeastern Connecticut, where she teaches seventh grade science. She brings to…

Back in the old days, there were printed field guides. The more comprehensive the guide, the heavier it was to lug around the woods. People left them at home. When they were out in the woods…

In winter, raccoons will sometimes take on roommates. Shared space means shared body heat, and avoiding conflict over desirable real estate. Porcupines may also spend time together in winter…

Beechdrops are dainty little plants, and easy to overlook in summer. This time of year, their forms stand out against fresh snow. Their relationship with the American beech is parasitic, they…

Nate McKeen, forestry district manager at Vermont’s Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation (FPR), recently reached out to us with a request to share a job posting. We were happy to…

Our annual Northern Woodlands Conference, held this past weekend, was a gathering of old friends and new, and an opportunity to meet with a fascinating mashup of great speakers. In lieu of the…

Tom Thomson shared these painterly images of hobblebush in fall color. He took these photos high on Mount Cube in Orford, New Hampshire, where he and his wife Sheila manage their land for both…

There’s a lot to see on the forest floor in October, if you can look away from this year’s brilliant canopy display. Noticed on a recent walk: wildly variegated patches of…

Every winter, as we plan the next Northern Woodlands Conference, we search out a few speakers who don’t, at first glance, have much to do with northeastern forests. These…

A landowner set up her game camera along a stream, and made the tactical error of telling her kids where it was located. Several hours after the first image was taken, a mother bear and two…

This is a grainy photo of an exceptional subject: a common nighthawk twisting in mid-air to capture an insect. The light conditions were poor; photographer Tig Tillinghast was only able to get…

Driving around in September, you see walls of firewood wedged between yard trees, covered with scrap metal and ready for battle. Porch racks are piled high, and in many rural towns, people are…

We recently received this photo for the August readers’ photo gallery, along with this explanation from Bonnie Honaberger: “I found this chrysalis on the ground, thus the straight…

Yesterday evening, a bat found its way into the Northern Woodlands building and flew into my office. It careened around the room for several revolutions and then (as far as I know) found its…

Sean Beckett, who will teach a photography workshop at this year’s Northern Woodlands Conference, shared this image of Sterling Falls near Stowe, Vermont. Sean is the Staff Naturalist at…

Recently, subscriber Diana Hayes encountered a group from the Vermont Loon Conservation Project at Quimby Camp in Averill, Vermont. Diana was pleased to see biologist Eric Hanson in this…

When she was young, Pam Wells aspired to be a forester. It was the late 1970s, and as she now wryly recalls, “I was not encouraged, as a woman.” So she directed her smarts and…

These photos were taken hours before a nest of yellow-bellied sapsuckers fledged. They were recorded 40 feet up in the canopy with a Canon full frame camera strapped to the top of a tree,…