The Outside Story

Some entomologists don’t like it when people call insects “bugs” because “bug” is the proper common name of only a small percentage of insects, those in the order Hemiptera. These…

The monarch flaps in my net as I reach in and carefully pull it out. My eight-year-old daughter peels an adhesive tag the size of my small fingernail from a sheet and gently sticks it on the…

In the Vermont and New Hampshire wildflower beauty pageant, ragweed certainly won’t win any titles. Problem is, it won’t win Miss Congeniality either. Until recently, most people…

Fish “get no respect,” perhaps because they are believed to be unintelligent creatures bound by patterned behavior. Nothing could be further from the truth. Their bum rap may be…

August is the month of migrating nighthawks. They leave Canada by the thousands, their stiff-winged beats churning the air above the Connecticut Valley and their wide mouths seining moths and…

We in northern New England continue to contend with acid rain. A report released by the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this year stated that, despite a decrease in the acidity of…

Last autumn, I had the chance to see a private collection of over one thousand turtles. It included some of the rarest turtles on earth. There was a gray turtle from the Amazon that had…

The milkweed in our Vermont meadow droops, yellowing, as hordes of orange aphids huddle on the wilted undersides of its leaves, delicate stiletto mouth parts sucking plant juices as the blades…

Tacked to my office wall is a color-coded map, “World Biogeographical Provinces,” which describes the distributions of plant and animal communities. Unlike conventional maps with…

Just for a moment, imagine what the Northeast would look like if seas were to rise 4,000 feet higher than they are now. Northern New England would be reduced to a series of islands—an…

We have heard from our parents not to play with the shiny little balls spilled from broken thermometers. We have heard rumors of health problems related to dental fillings. And we commonly…

Right this minute, in the Connecticut River, is a very large, old eel. She has a snakelike body (yet she is a fish, with fins) and is a greenish-brownish color. She is slimy and will get even…

One summer night, in the light of a half moon, I saw a bullfrog trespass on another’s territory. The owner met the challenge full force. Eight times he inflated his lungs and guts, then…

Strange worlds lie secluded within everyday surroundings we know well, yet they often remain overlooked and unappreciated. Evergreen or deciduous, a tree can be wounded when wind tears off a…

I went walking in the woods in Sharon, Vermont, the other day, wearing shorts and sandals – which would have been pretty risky in Connecticut, where I grew up. Lacking protective,…

Hey – don’t mow that field just yet! As dairy farms continue yielding to house lots, more and more of us find ourselves in possession of old hayfields and pastures. Since these…

I became interested in bats on a warm June night when I was awakened by a fairly large one flying excitedly back and forth over my bed. Heart racing, I bounded out of the room, slammed the…

I am climbing through the brush with Alcott Smith, a veterinarian who spends more time in the woods than in the clinic, on a pilgrimage to one of the last extant rattlesnake ledges in Vermont.…

Sorry, Rocky. There is no such thing as a friendly moose. There are several reasons why a moose might appear to be friendly, or at least not afraid of people, says Kristine Bontaites, moose…

They say that, back before Europeans arrived in North America, the forest was so thick that a squirrel could have traveled from the Atlantic coast all the way to the Mississippi River without…