The Outside Story

Last summer while working in the garden, I was startled when a fast-flying wasp dropped a plump pumpkin spider on the soil in front of me. The wasp landed, grabbed the spider, and wiggled…

To quote the French dramatist Jean Giradoux, “The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life.” Flowering plants fill our summer…

Occasionally I get an email from a camp, school, or even my local Rotary asking if I can present an insect program. So it was not unusual last week for me to be handing insect nets to excited…

One summer day, I was relaxing on the bank of a secluded pond watching mallard ducks forage when a dark shape broke the stillness of the water. It was a North American river otter, swimming…

Walking down my road on an early June afternoon several years ago, I spotted a snake attempting to cross into the underbrush. Covered in colorful splotches, it quickly slithered across the…

In 1860, a year after publication of his seminal work on the origin of species, Charles Darwin wrote to a friend, “At the moment, I care more about Drosera than the origin of all the…

I never tire of watching the aerial acrobatics of swallows as they swoop over fields, darting back and forth to snap up flying insects. With their smooth, flowing flight and pointed wings,…

Picture a robin, out in the morning and hopping around the park. It finds breakfast in the form of a worm, but out of the nearby trees swoops a bigger bird. The bigger bird acts threatening,…

Irises, with their large, exotic-looking flowers waving atop tall stems, are among the showiest early summer blooms. Most of North America’s nearly 30 native iris species are found in…

This spring, as you walk outside, keep an ear open for two distinctive bird songs: zee zee zee zee zo zee or zee zee zo zo zee. If you hear them, you’ve identified a black-throated green…

I often watch out for stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) while hiking in central Vermont. As you might guess from its name, brushing against this plant causes a bee sting-like burn that can last…

One summer, I took a nature drawing class, and we hiked up Vermont’s Stowe Pinnacle to sketch in the cool, mountain forest. I chose to draw a big yellow birch that had established itself…

On certain afternoons, if I time it just right, I may spot a brown creeper (Certhia americana) on the trunk of a tree in my front yard. Moving stealthily, almost imperceptibly up the tree, the…

On sunny, warm days, house flies hatch and buzz around homes and offices. These flies complete aerobatic stunts that easily evade human efforts at swatting or shooing. That aerial agility, so…

One spring, following heavy rain, I visited the Saint Michael’s College Natural Area hoping to capture exciting photographs of the rushing Winooski River. Rather than raging floodwaters,…

Erie was perched on a sunny branch when I met her on a cold day in March. She turned her head this way and that to survey her surroundings at the Vermont Institute of Natural Sciences (VINS).…

On a warm, rainy April night a few years ago, I drove up our muddy, rutted dirt road through the mist, steering around the wood frogs hopping across the road. As I approached the vernal pool,…

At this very moment, nestled into the sediment at the bottom of your nearest lake or pond, are Daphnia eggs – as many as 100,000 per square meter, according to one Michigan study. A…

When my sisters visit from Ireland, I try to play tour guide, but I’m occasionally at a loss for what to do next. During a visit in the late 1990s, my sister Grace said she would love to…

On Valentine’s Day, as I sat down to write, I noticed a burst of blue outside my upstairs window. Looking out with my binoculars, I counted six eastern bluebirds. Clustered on and below…