Blog and News

Eric Hanson, a biologist for the Vermont Loon Conservation Project, will give a natural history talk at this year’s Northern Woodlands Conference. The Loon Conservation Project is a…

I was editing a piece the other day on mourning warbler songs, and learned that males who live in different parts of the country sing differently. The variations might sound subtle to you and…

In a world where the natural environment is usually categorized as land or water, a swamp manages to be both. Deer and ducks, mink and mollusks, dogwoods and cattails all coexist in a rich…

I’ve been trying to explain capitalism and free market economics to a teenager over the past few years, in the wake of Occupy Wall Street, and Bernie Sanders, and the teenager having to…

The first red squirrel appeared at about 50 mph. It climbed up over my headrest and landed in my lap. I don’t recall the next few seconds very clearly, but according to my 5-year-old…

Transition zones are attractive to many mammals, so we set this camera trap up on an edge where a stand of spruce met a stand of maple. Over the next few nights we captured images of skunks,…

Well it’s been a quiet month in my home town, out there in the valley of Vermont. Weather-wise, we’ve seen just about everything but a good soaking rain. There were a few days when…

Now that the weather has improved, I’ve been out on my bike more. A couple years ago I wrote a blog about the wildlife you can see from your bike seat, and how this quiet mode of travel…

Human life can, at times, seem chaffingly structured. We rise at the same time every day and make little daily migrations to the same building; come home and make dinner at 7, an act…

I am walking backwards in the woods, wearing a bicycle helmet, and experiencing an intense surge of cowardice. In one of my hands is a stick. On top of that stick, held aloft like a knightly…