The Outside Story

The grackle appeared early last spring, the day before I put the feeder away (so as not to tempt the bears who would soon be awakening from their winter dens). In the dim light of a cloudy…

I put the small brown ant I had mounted (but never identified) under a microscope and peered down at it. Two huge, headlight-like eyes stared back at me. That couldn’t be right; ants…

Hikers climbing the Northeast’s highest peaks will traverse several different vegetative zones along the way. On the summits, they’ll likely encounter plants so hardy that many…

The opossums that show up on my students’ trail cameras at Saint Michael’s College sometimes look out of place, with their naked tails and frostbitten ears that seem so poorly…

I was sitting poolside with my children one summer day when another parent hustled her son out of the water because of a swimming cockroach. The “cockroach” turned out to be a…

Decayed wood crumbled underfoot as I stepped on a mossy log. The ground was almost hidden by a lush, diverse growth of wildflowers and ferns. Brown scapes of wild leeks poked up above mottled…

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…