I give a lot of tours at my 80-acre homestead, and have found that most visitors are delighted for the opportunity to connect nature with real life. Those of us who spend much time rubbing elbows with…

What’s the white stuff on this tree and on the ground?

There was an interesting profile, written by Ellen Barry, which ran in the New York Times this past spring about a guy named T. N. Pandit, an anthropologist from India who spent the 1960s and 70s…

We have a patch of about 100 pink moccasin lady’s slippers in our woods, and every year, some of the blossoms get munched. We assumed that deer were the culprits. There’s a deer yard up at…

Those of us in black bear country are advised to avoid feeding birds during spring, summer, and early fall – it’s good advice. When I put my feeders back up in late fall, however, I find…

Brambles are hard to mistake thanks to their clustered globes of fruit (what botanists call an “aggregate of drupelets”) and their even more noticeable thorns. At some time, just about…

As daylight drains from the summer sky, a cool breeze rustles through a hay-scented New England meadow. Relaxing in the long grass, even the keenest observer might miss the miniature army that’s…

As spring’s crescendo of birdsong mellows now to a steadier summer trill, I listen for melodies I don’t recognize and try to figure out which birds are singing. I look through binoculars…

July 1989: A stranger with a colander full of fragrant mushrooms changed my life. Reinhardt, a German scientist with wild hair, in khaki shorts, rushed into our dooryard, displayed his heap of gold…

Scanning a sunlit pond floor for crayfish, I was distracted by seven dark spots gliding in a tight formation. Six crisp oval shadows surrounded a faint, less distinct silhouette. The shapes slid…

Found on a hop hornbeam branch. What is it?

We ended our last game camera entry this way: For our next installment, we’ll set a camera up in some edge habitat on the top of a mountain in a wilderness area. We wonder what the ratio of…

“It’s chaos,” I said. Then: “I’ll call you back.” There was poop on the couch and, I’d just noticed, on my pants. I put the phone down and reached for the…

The “fisher cat” is neither of those things. Doesn’t fish. Isn’t a cat. In fact, a lot more of what people think they know about the fisher is wrong. It’s almost like we…

We’re excited about a new project we’re embarking on with Jerry Jenkins, a research ecologist, botanist, and geographer from White Creek, New York. The concept is simple: Jerry will keep a…

If you take a walk in the woods on a summer evening, you may be treated to the ethereal, flute-like song of the hermit thrush, often the only bird still singing at dusk (and the first bird to sing in…

Tree seedling identification from a distance without intact buds or fully developed leaves: What kind of tree is this?

Your May photos have a strong botanical theme, with a number of close-up images of budding leaves and blossoms. In Vermont, scientists netted and banded migratory songbirds, and in Pennsylvania, a…

Each fall, the Northern Woodlands Conference brings together people with diverse backgrounds for a weekend of boundary-spanning workshops and conversation. While forests provide a setting and theme…

“I took this image on the Subway trail on Mt. Mansfield in Vermont,” says photographer Nathanael Asaro. The trail runs parallel to the west side of the ridgeline. Asaro and a friend began…