This Week in the Woods, we’ve noticed bright green lungwort lichen, which grows on the trunks of both conifers and hardwoods. Because of its lettuce-like appearance, it’s easy to mistake…

A quarter-century after the publication of their landmark book The Northern Forest, two writers return to a changed landscape - and find hope in a conservationist committed to local solutions. As…

Climate change is bringing warmer and wetter conditions to the Northeast, with many implications for the forest products industry. An unpredictable winter season requires flexibility, and forest…

I’ve developed an intermittent habit of gathering birdsong in the morning. It began on holiday visits to my childhood home in western Massachusetts after I moved to Maine in 1998. The early…

Animal sign is all around. Nipped vegetation, chewed bark, animal runs and burrows. Are you in a field, spruce, hemlock, hardwood forest? It’s a whole universe out there, and you can never learn…

In the Second Gallery for July, the Rodent-Chicken Mutual Appreciation Society held its summer meeting in Danville, Vermont. Lucy the Moose enjoyed an early breakfast in Alstead, New Hampshire, and up…

Recently I saw a beautiful orange butterfly speckled with black – a great spangled fritillary – feeding on orange hawkweed in a meadow. I observed it through binoculars, so as not to scare…

This Week in the Woods we’ve been noticing leaf rolls on sugar maples and other hardwood tree species – single leaves that are wrapped up tightly like rolled cigars. These are often the…

Kelly Stettner, director of the Black River Action Team sent in this photo of a 6-foot-long something in the water of Muckross Pond in Springfield, Vermont. What is it?

Lucienne Nicholson is many things: a mother, an immigrant, a hiker, an enthusiastic gardener, a beach lover, and a wholehearted admirer of nature and its power to heal. She is also the founder of…

You submitted an abundance of photos for our July photo gallery – and even after limiting our selections to forest-related images (sorry, garden flowers and sea birds!) we still had too many…

I first became acquainted with my neighborhood red-bellied woodpecker (​Melanerpes carolinus) when it visited my bird feeders last winter. Sporting a black-and-white-striped back with a red…

This Week in the Woods, we’ve noticed more berries ripening, including red baneberry and its creepy cousin, doll’s eyes (white baneberry) which as its common name suggests, takes the form…

Lately, citizen scientists, gardeners, and outdoor enthusiasts of all types have become increasingly concerned with recorded declines in pollinating insect populations. From the Pollinator Pathway…

The American landscape has been altered more by the axe than by any other tool. It is estimated that more than 300 million acres of timber were cut prior to the advent of the chainsaw in the mid…

In the Summer 2020 issue, we feature two poems from Norwich University professor Sean Prentiss’ debut book of poetry, Crosscut. Here, Prentiss reflects on hand tools, the gifts and inspirations…

There was a sucking sound as my rubber boot sank into the deep black muck. Naturalist Jon Binhammer and I were standing in the middle of a hardwood swamp in central Vermont. Above us, dainty red…

This Week in the Woods, we’ve had several encounters with clymene moths. According to the National Wildlife Federation’s Field Guide to Insects and Spiders of North America, this species…

For Lisabeth Willey, it was turtle love at first sight, and she’s had a lifelong love affair with shelled reptiles. A conservation biologist and a professor at Antioch University New England,…

We found this odd structure growing next to several Amanita mushrooms. What made it?