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…
Knots and Bolts
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…
An Icy Life on the St. John River
Travel 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…
Thrushes from Top to Bottom
Unless 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…
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…
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…
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…
The Ants Go Marching
And so do the spiders, the springtails, the beetles, and the wasps. If you’ve ever been out for a walk in the woods on a balmy day in late winter or early spring, you’ve probably…
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…
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…
Maul vs. Axe
If you want to identify yourself as someone who knows nothing about the subject, announce that you’re headed out to the woodshed to chop some firewood. Chopping firewood went out of…
Correction
In our story, “Putting Wood in Your Gas Tank,” in the Spring 2006 issue, it was stated that the part of the corn plant that was being made into ethanol is the stover – the…
Getting a Fix on Declination
“You can’t get there from here” is a classic Yankee punchline, usually delivered at the end of a joke involving an old-timer, a bewildered tourist, and a location somewhere over hill and…
The Outdoors Comes In
When summer downpours drive you indoors, or you’re weary from a day-hiking or canoeing, you might be surprised to find that the outdoors can be found inside, on a television station near…
Indian Pipe
An oddity in the plant world is the roughly one percent of plant species that do not manufacture their own carbohydrates via photosynthesis. Instead, these plants are parasites, stealing…
Against All Odds
Working as a consultant forester, I get to see some unusual things in the forest, but what I found last winter on a woodlot in Ludlow, Vermont, truly amazed me. This woodlot is owned by…
Ben’s Bears Go High-Tech
Tucked in the deep, hilly woods of west-central New Hampshire are several bears, and a man, who are famous by virtue of their relationship with one another. Mother Bear Man – aka Ben…
The Greatest Good
The U.S. Forest Service has finalized its latest Forest Plan for the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire and Maine, and you can be excused for having missed it. Compared with the…
The Current State of Current Use
The six New England states and New York each have some sort of property tax system in place specifically for owners of forestland. These programs are generally referred to as “current…
Downright Downeast
Of all the land conservation projects in the Northern Forest over the past two decades, the most hopeful might be the Downeast Lakes Forestry Partnership, which was concluded this past summer…