The Outside Story

Fat gets a bad rap in the medical world, for good reason. Excessive body fat is linked to a litany of health risks, including diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and stroke. Yet in…

We humans tend to cringe at winter temperatures. We put on extra layers, crank up the thermostat, and wait impatiently for the tell-tale drip of spring thaw. However, there are plenty of tiny…

Many years ago, I lived in San José, California where the weather forecast went something like this: Sunny for three weeks, one day of rain, followed by many more weeks of sun. There…

One of my family’s cherished Christmas traditions, back at our farm in Virginia, is to search out mistletoe balls growing high in the hedgerows. Then we take out a 20-gauge shotgun and…

Deep in the winter-dark woods, beneath the roots of a fallen tree, a mother black bear hibernates with her two yearling cubs. In the spring, they will wake up in a near starvation condition,…

My favorite season tends to be whatever comes next, which means, for now, deep winter. With our storm windows installed and four tons of wood pellets put up, I'm feeling smug as the ant…

Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! vile thing, let loose, Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent! -William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream The aroma of wood smoke lingers as you…

In November, as the last colors of autumn are fading, the stark outlines of tree branches are revealed. During this time you might be lucky enough to see an occasional dark mass, looking from…

Nature writers spend a lot of time celebrating the unknowns in the natural world, those little reminders that we’re not as smart as we think we are. It’s an especially resonant…

On a morning walk around the pond, the dog and I encountered a dead shrew – perhaps the unfortunate casualty of a neighborhood feline or a red fox (shrews are well-known for being…

Who left that soccer ball on the front lawn? Come on, you know it didn’t just grow there. Pretending to confuse a giant puffball mushroom with a soccer ball (or vice versa) is a…

It's mid-October and fall is in full swing: foggy mornings, cold rains, and falling leaves. Time to talk about…tadpoles!? That's right, while we may be accustomed to discussing…

Of the many questions one is left with after listening to the nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice, none is more vexing than how three blind rodents were able to chase anything, let alone a…

Cottonmouth snakes, also known as water moccasins, do not live in Vermont or New Hampshire. These venomous snakes live only in the South. In spite of this, Michael Marchand, a biologist and…

Since as far back as I can remember, the sight of a group of turtles basking on a log has made me pause to enjoy their prehistoric appearance. Most summer days during my early childhood were…

As a nature writer and photographer, I spend a lot of my time peering closely at leaves, twigs, and flowers, seeking what lurks in their midst. So it was that I discovered Phymata, the Ambush…

The Norse Vikings referred to the east coast of North America as Vinland, with grapes so plentiful they could be smelled from the sea. Such historical abundance is questionable; the…

Whirlwinds of feathered bodies, iridescent beetle-blue on top and snowy below, are touching down all along the eastern seaboard. Flocks move in a loose collection of tumbles and dives,…

During the heat of mid-summer, when birds are often quiet and well-hidden, I turn my attention to dragonflies. Because they are sturdy bodied insects with wings that are not easily damaged…

Plants are not often thought of as predators. They’re the nice guys. With over 300,000 species known to exist, only a small fraction are known to be meat-eaters. In our northern bogs,…