Thump. Thud. Something was hitting our window! It was a bright red cardinal flying at his reflected image in the glass – which he perceived to be an intruder in his territory. The bird kept it…

While thinning his larch plantation, Ben Canonica found this horse hockey up in a tree. Proof of Pegasus, or is there an alternative explanation?

Fans of Animal Planet’s North Woods Law television series may recognize Lt. Heidi Murphy from the show, which follows New Hampshire Fish & Game conservation officers through various job…

Turtles and timberdoodles! Your March photos revealed a world waking up (or, in the case of one hard-boiling sugarhouse, firing up). In the southern parts of our reader area, the amphibians were…

Inonotus obliquus, more commonly known as the chaga mushroom, is parasitic to its birch host but purportedly provides a variety of benefits to humans. Chaga is rich in antioxidants, high in fiber, and…

April 5 – From the blinding white snow of the hayfield I look down on the wetland mosaic I call The Great Alder Carr. On my third straight day of coming here I see the first glimmerings of open…

For 87 years, the Bartlett Experimental Forest has been a proving ground for almost every forestry treatment ever plausibly proposed for managing northern hardwoods. Vetting and spreading the best of…

Scientists have been studying birds continuously at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest since 1969, compiling one of the most detailed studies of neotropical migratory birds in North America.…

Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts, is one of the most storied experimental forests in the Northeast. Founded in 1907, it’s the home to decades-old forest ecology research studies, and…

Nobody knows who introduced garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) from Europe to North America, but whoever it was must have brought it for its flavor. Anyone who has smelled the crushed plant will…

This is such a disorienting time, when all our lives have been turned upside down and shaken. One of the ways my own family is coping is by spending time outside every day. We stage nature treasure…

Around the middle of March, I begin to feel that springtime urge to hit the road, to lace up the winter-neglected running shoes and start slogging through some miles. My early-season jogs take me past…

Bee hunting is the sport of finding wild colonies of honeybees. You usually start by catching a half-dozen or so worker bees inside a small contraption called a “bee box.” Next, you tuck a…

Now that spring has officially arrived, here's a warm weather WITWIT to get you in the mood for spring. Who stuffed these nesting materials beneath the bark of a dying elm?

Sandy Dannis shared this photo of a mink that she encountered while walking on her land in Dalton, New Hampshire. Mink aren't typically found up trees, but they're known to climb when…

Dave Brown moved to Craftsbury, Vermont, in 1974 to take a teaching job at what is now Sterling College. He’d grown up near Salt Lake City, Utah, and in Texas, gone to college in Wisconsin, and…

To our Northern Woodlands Community: In response to COVID-19, we have closed the Northern Woodlands office to visitors, and will be doing most of our work remotely for the next few weeks. Now seems…

When Vermont State Police and the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department need to search the woods, they call on this special group of air scent dogs and their handlers. The keys to NEK9’s…

Sometimes it pays to be an insomniac. One frigid winter night, I climbed out of my restless bed and slipped outside to stand under a sky littered with stars and take in the complete silence of…

During the summer, I often spy common garter snakes sunning themselves in my garden. As the snow piles up through winter, covering the landscape in cold white, I wonder where these warmth-seeking…