The Outside Story

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…

Warblers can be hard to find. First of all, they are small. Slip three in an envelope, and a single 39-cent stamp would be sufficient to cover the postage. And they are binocular-shy,…

The next time you are driving through Moose Alley on U.S. Route 3 in Pittsburg, New Hampshire, or watching a moose wallow in a Green Mountain marsh, you can thank the beaver for helping make…

Most people know that tree species vary in their ability to tolerate shade, with shade-tolerant species often found growing in the dim light underneath the shade-intolerant canopy trees they…

Primal, elemental, and evocative of the wild recesses of the human spirit, the “common” loon is among our most beloved birds. Its rapacious ancestors swam with dinosaurs and snared…

What is diatomaceous earth, you ask? Quite simply, it is the naturally occurring remains of Bacillariophyceae algae, unicellular organisms that have been abundant in the world’s oceans,…

If warblers have nightmares, they are probably about their cousin, the loggerhead shrike (Lanius ludovicianus). An elegant little bird, the shrike’s appearance is not what makes it so…

I’ll make one prediction about this coming summer: the floor of the dry storage above our garage will become covered in bat guano. How do the culprits of this mess – likely little…

Ebola, SARS, avian flu. All of these are horrifying diseases. They have all attracted quite a bit of media attention lately. And, luckily, they seem to be diseases that are more of a concern…

Yesterday a warm mid-March sun shone upon a few inches of fresh snow. By nightfall, it was cold again and starry clear – perfect for bobcat courtship. Evidence of last night’s…

Several years ago, I attended a talk by a Seattle man who described how civic leaders, after much consideration, had adopted the Pacific salmon as the key indicator of quality of life in their…

“Good weather for ducks.” How often have you heard a drizzly spring day described this way? But how about if the weather is 15 degrees Fahrenheit, with a stiff wind and light snow? Could…

Ten years ago, I led a field trip to Silver Lake State Park in Barnard, Vermont. A few parents and a gaggle of children – bedecked in flippers and waterwings – lugged our gear to…

I was drinking around four gallons per year before I realized I had a problem. I should have kicked the habit right then, but instead I started making my own and was soon up to six gallons per…

Last year, the headlines read, “Ivory-billed Woodpecker Found in Arkansas.” Scientists smiled and birders cheered. The largest woodpecker in North America, thought to be extinct for over…

During late summer and early autumn, raccoons in Vermont and New Hampshire witness something of a miracle: food falls from the sky. This is not their traditional fare of plants and…