Knots and Bolts

When the Edwards family closed its four-generation dairy farm in 2001, Kurt and Kristie Edwards turned their attention to the mostly forested property, a few miles away, which has been in…

“Hey Fred,” said Geoff Dennis over the phone. “I have a tame hermit thrush in my woods that is practically eating out of my hand. Would you like to come over and photograph it?” Oh…

When I was young, I dreamed of apprenticing to a wise elder who could train me in the ways of the wild. Alas, as a child growing up in a Connecticut suburb, I never found such a teacher. But,…

Both cedar and Bohemian waxwings derive their common names from the red, waxy tips of some of their secondary feathers.The color of this wax is due to the presence of the pigment astaxanthin.…

Although the largest vertebrate that has ever lived is the female blue whale, in most species of birds and mammals, males are larger than their mates. In birds of prey (hawks, falcons, eagles,…

Jockey Hill Farm in Shrewsbury, Vermont has been in the Stout family since 1942. It has been protected by a conservation easement since the early 1990s and been enrolled in Vermont’s…

Imagine a deck of playing cards that allows you to play a game of gin rummy and also offers an invitation to explore our northern forests and to understand them in a deeper way. David George…

Bush pilot John Knox, an old friend of mine from Piseco, a small community located in the heart of the Adirondacks, allowed me to copy this photo from his family collection many years ago.…

When I was in college, some friends found a patch of amaranth growing wild in the school’s community garden, and we decided to try to make flour from its seeds. This was before the…

The hikers are visibly exhausted as they trudge the final steps toward the summit of Mount Marcy – past the “Revegetation Area” cordoned off with string fence and the plaque…

During the summer months, after breeding in a body of water, northern leopard frogs (Lithobates pipiens) are often found in wet, grassy meadows. Come fall, they typically migrate toward the…

The very first meal a monarch butterfly caterpillar eats is its own eggshell. In order to hatch, the caterpillar eats its way out of the egg, and then polishes off the remainder of the…

By the time the hottest days of summer come around, the wild greens of spring have grown too tough to enjoy. When this time comes, I head to my mother’s garden to help her weed –…

On a hot July morning on Market Street in Lyme, New Hampshire, Jaxon Morgan leaned against his car bumper swinging a long, black machete through the air. A quiet man with broad gestures, thick…

In 1926, newlyweds Alva and Mildred Richardson moved to the wilds of New Hampshire. Alva was just starting a job as a U.S. Forest Guard in the recently established White Mountain National…

My work as a field ecologist has taken me to some rugged and remote places. I’ve kayaked lakes and rivers, trekked through hot, mosquito-infested wetlands, and spent entire seasons above…

A cloud of reddish dust rose behind our car as we drove down a series of dirt U.S. Forest Service roads southeast of Williams, Arizona. It was September 2019, and we were headed for a hike at…

Miterwort (Mitella diphylla), also called bishop’s cap, is named for the resemblance of its two-peaked fruits to the hats (known as miters) worn by bishops of the Roman Catholic Church.…

Dave Ireland is showing off his woods. Well, not his woods, exactly. We’re walking along a dirt road on Mount Desert Island. The waves and the brisk coastal wind whisper in the distance.…

I have always had a sweet tooth. And, outside of the berry season, I’ve often found it hard to satisfy my sweet tooth as a forager. Plants, of course, are constantly manufacturing sugar…