The Outside Story

Our reaction to the word ‘parasite’ is usually one of disgust. After all, aren’t parasites the creepy, revolting little creatures that burrow into animals’ bodies and spread through…

Invasive species don’t always arrive in North America in the bilge of a boat from Asia, in a shipment of wood from Europe, or from another distant shore. Some species, like the rusty…

Find yourself a sphagnum-covered bog in Vermont or New Hampshire, and you’re likely to find a pitcher plant. Peer a little closer, and you’ll find a miniature food web living within each…

Four years ago, researchers found a statistical link between Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus and Colony Collapse Disorder in honeybees. Three years ago, researchers at Penn State University…

On the fourth day of spring, fifteen kindergartners rejoiced in a sunny field a few blocks from downtown Montpelier, Vermont. It was Friday, a school day, and Mrs. Koch’s morning lesson,…

At the waning of Sogalikas, the “sugarmaker” moon, the traditional Abenaki season for gathering wild edible and medicinal plants begins. Abenaki culture has been handed down to the present…

Among the noisy throngs of blackbirds that are the earliest harbingers of spring in the Northeast, the rusty blackbird often escapes notice. Few birders encounter this enigmatic songbird…

I remember being fascinated by the Dr. Seuss book Horton Hears a Who as a child. It made me wonder: could each of those specks of dust dancing in the light shafts from my bedroom window be its…

There is nothing like the fresh smell of a spring morning, unless, during the night, a skunk skulked about your neighborhood. The striped skunk is armed with just a teaspoon of odoriferous oil…

We don’t want to shock the tourists, but the spring woods do bring some color beyond green. While spring displays of herbaceous plants flowering on the forest floor are a treat, there is…

One of Vermont and New Hampshire’s least-known birds is the spruce grouse. This is partly because the birds live exclusively in the boreal forests of northeast Vermont and northern New…

Many residents of Vermont and New Hampshire are familiar with salamanders such as the eastern newt (and its terrestrial form, the red eft, which can often be found along hiking trails and…

Unlike the Ents in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, real trees can’t walk away from danger or fight their own battles. When climate becomes inhospitable, forests can only shift ranges…

The steady “drip, drip” of sap into buckets and the whirring of vacuum pumps pulling sap out of tubing mean that maple sugar season is underway once again across Vermont and New Hampshire.…

We’ve all seen them, picking their way thoughtfully across a cornfield or lurking quietly in an abandoned pasture. Wild turkeys seem to be everywhere now. In one field near my home in…

Five years ago, my wife, Sue, and I swallowed hard, signed a contract on the advice of our forester, and invited loggers onto our land. We’d never had logging done before, so we were…

There are few things on this pulsing planet that appear less alive, and more adverse to life, than snow. It falls from the sky in sharp-edged crystals. It blankets the earth in white, silent…

A few summers ago, I saw a red squirrel skittering along the top of a stonewall with something in its mouth. I snuck in closer and discovered the headless body of a chipmunk dangling from its…

Cold got you down? Ready to trade in your hat and scarf for something a little scantier? While you’re waiting for that to happen – and good luck! – consider a visitor to these…

We take for granted that trees drop their leaves in fall and open their buds in spring, with a glorious burst of flowers and leaves. Indeed, florists know that apple branches cut in March and…