The Outside Story

How much can a bird’s egg tell us about the bird that laid it and how it lives? As it turns out, it can tell us a lot about the generalities, but little about the details. For example, what…

Old fields pulse with activity. Butterflies flutter, crickets call, meadow voles scurry, and black-and-yellow garden spiders ambush from dew-spangled webs. Early June footsteps release the…

“Going, going, gone! Big Papi does it again with a walk-off home run for the Red Sox!” How many times have Sox fans heard this call after that tell-tale crack of bat on ball? Until…

The poet Ogden Nash put it succinctly: “God in His wisdom / Made the fly / And then forgot / To tell us why.” True, it’s blackfly season, which is perhaps not the best time of year to…

The fleeting interval between late-April and mid-May, after the snow has melted yet before the canopy of leaves overhead is fully deployed, is when many of our native woodland flowers, such as…

Horsetails and scouring rushes are among the commonest plants around, especially noticeable early in spring when the evergreen species among this group stand out against an otherwise mostly…

Here are some ways to get rid of dandelions: spraying 2,4-D (an herbicide, banned in several countries for its health risks, but not in the U.S.); pulling up by hand; mowing the flowers before…

To wildlife biologists, the benefits of maintaining healthy riparian buffers are self-evident. But to most people, these terms are obscure. Riparian comes from the Latin riparius, meaning…

Roadside carrion is a sure sign of spring, and when I saw a raccoon shuffling along the shoulder of the interstate highway in full daylight today, I wondered about its prospects for longevity.…

And now, a few words on a topic that might have slipped your mind: your septic system. Despite the temptation to treat your septic system as “out of sight, out of mind,” you need to pay…

In 1848, workers constructing the railroad line from Bellows Falls to Rutland, Vermont, found the remains of a mastodon buried 11 feet deep in a Mount Holly bog. One tusk was nearly eight feet…

Veterinarians pay attention to it. So do animal trackers. If you own a pet, you are probably paying attention, too, because you have to clean it up. Yes, I’m talking about poop, scat, feces,…

Why did the animal cross the road? The yellow sign, familiar to many, proclaims “Moose Crossing.” But, we wonder, how can anyone predict that a moose would cross at this particular spot,…

It’s a warm evening, and the only signs of snow are the eroding piles beside the driveway. Down in the valley, there is a chorus erupting, and up on the hill in a pond, another is just…

With winter breaking up and spring on its way, I spied a small pool of water glinting in the sunlight where meltwater seeps across a meadow. The pool’s surface was speckled by hordes of…

When mud season arrives, I go out at sunset wearing khakis and a brown-checked jacket. I wait in the brush of a hedgerow that trails down to a wet meadow. The sky turns salmon, then fades to…

With a small investment in feeders and seed, we can attract colorful visitors throughout the stark, white winter. But feeders can also attract a number of uninvited guests to the table. Bird…

Counting trees accurately is an essential skill for people working in the woods. Does a woodlot contain valuable timber? Are the trees growing densely or sparsely? Which tree species are…

The whir of drills and the tap of hammers will soon be resonating from sugarbushes. Clouds of roiling steam and the first waft of fresh syrup won’t be far behind. As the 2008 season kicks…

Quick – what hardiness zone are you in? If you happen to be a farmer or gardener, you’ll know the answer right off the bat, and it will probably be “four” if you live in New…