The Outside Story

In much of New Hampshire and Vermont, our beloved maples are showing signs of distress. Sure, the reds and oranges for which our forests are famous are now popping out of autumn hillsides.…

A rainy day for a snail is equivalent to a beautiful day at the beach for us, which might just explain why our moisture-loving land snails were out and about in greater numbers this summer.…

Birds wheel through the air en masse, swooping and diving as a flock but never hitting one another. It’s not because they have magical powers, although that was one suggestion made in the…

How do we count the days? By bracketing them with night. We rise with the dawn and remain active into the evening, confident that when awakened by sunlight, the “next” day will be distinct…

In the twilight of an overcast mid-August dusk, members of the Hartland Nature Club in Hartland, Vermont, gathered by the side of a trim white farmhouse. At 7:28 pm, a small, dark animal…

Rory Moon can’t wait to climb through the culvert. His father, David Moon, says he can’t just yet. There are measurements to take first. “We have a serious outlet perch,…

Did you know there is a silk moth – one of the moths of the family Saturniidae – that belongs exclusively to Northern New England? Its natural range is entirely within Vermont, New…

Nearly a billion monarch butterflies from the eastern United States and Canada migrate to the mountains of Mexico each year, and this year’s migration is already underway. This has long been…

With autumn rapidly approaching, we in hilly New England are fortunate to witness spectacular displays of fall colors as the deciduous trees lose their leaves for the winter. This remarkable…

Some have teeth, some a sticky, entrapping liquid. Others have one-way tunnels leading to pools of digestive juices and are said to exude a paralyzing perfume. All of which are good reasons…

An oddity in the plant world is the roughly one percent of plant species that do not manufacture their own carbohydrates via photosynthesis. Instead, these plants are parasites, stealing…

To see a stream’s smallest inhabitants, lie on a flat rock and duck your head underwater. A mask and snorkel help. You’ll be assailed by the effervescence of rushing water, the sibilance…

Some of the best views in Vermont and New Hampshire are found at the top of fire towers. But with most of the states’ towers long since taken down, and with those few still remaining now…

Vermont and New Hampshire are great places to live, if for no other reason than the wildlife. At any given moment, you might glance out the window upon a profusion of lively flowers jostled by…

Years ago, I learned that the large, bulbous, metallic-blue beetles that are often found on the lawn are called blister beetles. When molested, they exude a clear, orange liquid from their…

Our farmhouse looked a lot like other northern New England farmhouses when we first moved in: short on landscaping but long on charm. Green grass grew right up to the old stone foundation.…

Lighthouse-keepers were the first to notice. Even in the days before electric lights, lighthouse-keepers who tended flaming lamps atop tall towers noticed that, on some nights, birds would…

A chipmunk’s is the only life I have ever saved using CPR. The animal had become tangled in some netting around a garden at a summer camp where I was working, twisted the mesh into a noose,…

Usnea, pronounced ooze-nee-ah and better known as old man’s beard, is the long, lacy, greenish lichen that grows from tree trunks and branches in forests across New Hampshire and Vermont. It…

You’ve no doubt heard the sad tale of Vermont and New Hampshire agriculture by now. Farming washed over our states like a tidal wave in the late eighteenth century, covering more than three…