The Outside Story

We all see our forests for the trees, but the woods are alive with other plants. Among the most common are ferns, which don’t just get by in the deep shade of the forest – they…

In the natural world predation is relentless, and evading predators strongly favors the evolution of camouflage colors in animals. How contradictory then, for small, defenseless creatures…

One of my hobbies this time of year is to try to pinpoint the day that I can say that the leaves are out and spring has arrived. Usually it’s sometime in the second week of May, though…

The old saw about “an apple a day” as the way to perfect health may have been overstated, but the apple is a great food and a nutritional bonanza. A medium-sized apple has…

Spring is on our doorstep, and so are the ants. Seeking the open sugar bowl or the drops of maple syrup left on the kitchen counter, they’re a sure sign that winter has finally drifted…

A distant motor thud-thud-thuds as if trying to start, then dies away. The noise repeats, and again dies off. I’ve been fooled by this sound, wondering who could be trying to start a…

Last fall, I went to a nearby wetland with a pair of clippers and cut twigs from one willow shrub after another. It wasn’t hard to tell the willows from the non-willows because willows…

The eastern white pine is the tallest tree in this part of North America, with the biggest specimens getting up near 200 feet. They can live for 250 years or more. A truly big one is…

Our sugarhouse is within walking distance of an elementary school, so we’ve given tapping demonstrations to hundreds of school kids over the years. At the part where someone drills a…

My friend Ed’s a barrel-chested logger who lives in southern Vermont. He’s a tough hombre, as is anyone who makes their living cutting trees. I’ve seen him bull his skidder…

The only regal thing about the golden-crowned kinglet is the crest of yellow-orange feathers atop its head. Everything else about this speck of a songbird’s appearance and behavior…

On a walk through a still, snowy sugarbush, the peacefulness can be overwhelming; everything looks to be in good order. But all may not be as perfect as it seems. In any sugarbush, there is a…

Many times I’ve been wandering through dense forest only to stumble on human artifacts like old cellar holes, a well, or rusting farm equipment. Then there are the miles of stone walls…

In summer, you always know when a striped skunk has been around. But in winter, these animals make themselves scarce, hunkering down to wait out the onslaught of ice and snow. Unlike most…

I can’t say for sure exactly how many of my childhood birthdays were celebrated on the ice of Lake Champlain, but a good number. That’s what happens when your father likes to ice…

Crossbills are one of our most specialized groups of birds, feeding almost exclusively on conifer seeds. These hardy, nomadic finches have evolved oddly-shaped bills that allow them to…

Winter is a hard time for wildlife. It brings deep cold, leafless terrain, and a shortage of food and water. Animals have few choices. Most songbirds abandon the region via a perilous…

The calls come in all winter, said Paul DeBow of DeBow Wildlife Service in Plymouth, New Hampshire. If there is no snow, the peak will be in January or February, when it’s the coldest.…

If you’re a white pine, it can’t be a good way to die. It starts when infectious spores land on your needles and enter through your pores. Masses of slimy spores grow under your…

In the old days, ladybeetles (or ladybugs) used to “flyaway home” to their children, as per the old nursery rhyme. Now one species, the Halloween ladybeetle, is instead flying…