The Outside Story

Amanda Priestley is on the hunt for a tree killer, and she wants your help. Priestley is an outreach specialist with the

When a tree nears the end of its life span, woodpeckers may arrive to puncture holes in its trunk. Rainwater running into the openings can carry bacterial and fungal spores that attack…

Like most of you, I spend my summer leisure time contemplating the tongue of the primrose moth. OK, it’s not exactly a tongue. Butterflies and moths have a straw-like proboscis that they…

The strangest animal I had ever seen crossed in front of my car, near the Thetford–Norwich line on the Connecticut River in Vermont last summer. It had a pointed snout, a tubular body…

On a meadow walk the other day, near my home in St. Johnsbury, Vt., I noticed a bright green insect dart along the path as I approached, then rocket into flight and disappear. It was a tiger…

One day I looked out my kitchen window and noticed two birds I had never seen before, digging in the gravel on my driveway, They were larger than the juncos that hunt for seeds among the…

The early light of dawn was filtering into the bedroom, when I heard that faint but distinctive pounding, as though someone were pounding with a tiny ball peen hammer. Ratta tatta tat-tat-tat.…

When the alarm sounded on a hot and dry weekday afternoon in April, fire crews from Londonderry, N.H., rushed in tanker trucks and pickups not to a burning house but to a fire at the…

One of the pleasures of the brief northern spring is moseying-about in back forties to learn what birds are arriving, what insects are emerging and what flowers are blooming. And among the…

It’s a strange, beautiful scene. I see cliffs and chasms and valleys unlike anything I’ve viewed on earth. It’s as though I’m glimpsing a rugged landscape on a planet somewhere far out…

When Andy Warhol said everyone would have 15 minutes of fame, he wasn’t talking about invertebrates. But in March of 1987 the dwarf wedge mussel garnered national attention when Plainfield,…

The Algonquin called them “moos,” a word for “twig eaters.” In winter moose munch on the buds and new growth of aspen, willow and other trees; they may even use their lower incisors to…

Without legs, wings, eyes, tentacles, or antennae, an earthworm appears almost too simple a creature to do anything. Yet, just for starters, they have well-designed tools for motoring: tiny…

“Fee-beee.” The chickadees that wintered near our house have added this familiar spring tune to their repertoire. The male birds are singing to proclaim territory and call…

With the sun finally warming the land, the buds have awakened are doing their things again. Filled with promise, they burst forth, tender leaf tips lengthening and flowers unfolding. In my…

Chances are good you have malaria in your yard. It’s found throughout New England, but you won’t come down with it. This is avian malaria, and, unfortunately for birds, it is as common as…

It is a magical time we anticipate for months. The sap begins to flow in bare trees. Even in cold, with snow covering the ground, the redwings and robins and grackles return within a day or…

Legend tells us that Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey as our national bird. Too bad it’s not. The bald eagle is thought to possess attributes admired by our American culture —…

Shall we go to the beach today? If you can’t afford Bermuda or sunny Florida, perhaps we can visit some former beaches closer to home. Put on your boots, and leave the flip-flops because…

A few weeks ago, I was working outside during one of winter’s warm spells. The sun shone, and the temperature was in the low 40s. From the edge of the woods, a hopeful chickadee sang out,…