It’s a magnificent bird – one of the largest woodpeckers in North America. Its plumage is striking, with stripes of black and white feathers and a bright red crest. It can be shy. Its…

Forests would be a lot less interesting and not nearly as beautiful without ferns, wildflowers, shrubs, understory trees, and other small plants. But as the canopy closes in a forest, the amount of…

Fish for enough summers and you can’t help but accumulate some photos in the classic sporting genre: guy holding fish. If the trophy is a smallmouth, you’re likely to be hoisting it by the…

If you have your window open right at this moment, you may hear it: a chickadee chick-ing and dee-ing away. Bird enthusiasts and even the rest of us think of the call primarily as a territorial…

There is yet another invasive pest to beware of, says Cornell Extension Associate Dr. E. R. Hoebeke. Last September, he happened across the woodwasp Sirex noctilio (Fabricius) while searching…

Too often, innovations that have existed in the plant world for millennia are attributed to the human mind. A study of the bunchberry (Cornus canadensis), found in woodlands throughout New England,…

On a spectacular summer day in July, three of us – all botanists – gathered our gear together at a remote trailhead in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. Dorothy Allard, Annie Reed, and I…

The fungi that attack heartwood in living trees are grouped according to what part of the tree they attack – roots, butt, trunk, or branches – and by what component of the wood they…

...even if it wasn't there before? Trees that rapidly colonize forest openings made by recent cutting, fire, or wind throw are often called “pioneers.” Species such as aspen and paper…

In April, the Maine Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC) received a petition that could change the nature of development in the backwoods of Maine. The proposal from the Plum Creek Timber Company, a…

With the recent arrival of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in New York state, officials from agriculture and fish and game departments throughout the Northeast have been scrambling to stop its spread.…

Foresters of a certain age will recognize the question, “Forests for whom and for what?” posed by Marion Clawson in the title of a forest policy book widely read by students learning how…

“This time they got caught” was the distinct overtone in a recent news story in which 15 illegal immigrants from China who had packed themselves into a crate were found just in the nick of…

Unfolding over the past year, we’ve experienced something at Northern Woodlands that serves as a symbol for everything that we’ve stood for since we began publishing this magazine 11 years…

The prices reported here are those that log buyers—mostly sawmills and wholesalers—are paying for logs. Because these are prices paid for delivered wood, landowners need to adjust the…

It is usually easiest to fell a tree in the direction that it’s leaning, but sometimes it’s necessary to fell it in the opposite direction. A tree leaning away from the intended direction…

This is not the book for you if you want the standard wildlife habitat fare: what kind of viburnum to plant at the edge of your yard, how to make a brush pile for chipmunks and sparrows, or how to set…

In the past decade or so, vernal pools have received a fair amount of attention from people other than naturalists, ecologists, conservationists, and natural resource professionals. An increasing…

This is a powerful book. It is relatively short as well, and if you are lucky enough to be able to read it over the space of a few days, it will work on your psyche the way a really good poem works.…

We humans have a knack for believing that everything was better, more vivid, more extreme, or at least more memorable when we were younger. The snow was deeper. The foliage was more beautiful. The…