October 14, 2009. Jim Block captured the transition from autumn to winter from the fire tower atop Smarts Mountain in Lyme, New Hampshire.  

Even those who say they don’t know the first thing about trees are likely to appreciate the fact that giant trees emerge from tiny seeds. Really, what sort of grump doesn’t smile at the…

In 2010, the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences conducted a study for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to examine the greenhouse gas implications of using woody biomass for energy.…

I took a kid fishing recently. A friend’s kid – a ten-year-old boy who didn’t grow up rural. We cast rooster tails and panther martins into a tea-colored lake that sat up on the…

The shock of crimson from a red maple growing at the edge of a wetland, the spying of a kettle of broadwings flying south, the evocative sound of a katydid suggesting that a return to school is…

If you’ve done any traveling around New York or New England this summer, you’ve probably come across one of the purple emerald ash borer traps that are hanging from ash trees along…

Some trees continue to "flower" throughout the summer – like this one. What kind of tree produced this "flower?"

It appears that Sadie Hawkins Day has made its way into the butterfly world. Or, more likely, the sex role reversal when women ask men out for a date got its start with insects and only recently…

While it has long been known that plants absorb carbon dioxide for use in photosynthesis, a new study has found that plants play a larger role than previously thought in absorbing certain types of air…

When Mark Urban noticed that some vernal pools contained an abundance of certain salamanders but the same species was scarce or absent in other nearby pools, he wondered why. What the University of…

No one has been bitten by a rattlesnake in Vermont in over 50 years. But that streak ended last year when a man in Fair Haven was struck between the thumb and index finger by a snake as he was…

While controversy rages over the reinstated killing of wolves in western states, these predators may be making a quiet comeback in the northeast, slipping across the border from Canada. And the notion…

Reader Dick Pearson submitted this picture of two tiny fleur de lis’. What are they? And where did they come from?

If your dog roles in poo or roadkill it doesn’t mean that he’s an idiot. Quite the opposite, actually. It means he’s a team player and a good storyteller. In ancient times, when…

It’s the middle of August, and the heat and humidity have chased me to the relative coolness of Centennial Woods, a 147-acre patch of forest owned by the University of Vermont. There’s not…

If you’re going to get a casual reader interested in a 442-page history of anything, you’d better have an engaging subject matter. Fortunately for Eric Jay Dolin, the fur trade is…

By the time you read this, the annual banquet of fiddleheads may have passed, but a cornucopia of other wild foods, medicines, and materials are available to anyone who cares to discover them. Arthur…

Roger Tory Peterson, a man in need of a big biography, finally has one. At 422 pages, Elizabeth Rosenthal delivers a thorough and masterful account of the man known to friends as the “King…

Few activities in this world are better for the soul than taking a child fishing. Most anglers recall fondly the early days of their youth when that person, be it a parent, grandparent, or family…

Northern Woodlands held its annual board meeting on July 20th. The day’s events included a tour of the Mount Tom Forest at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park, a discussion about…