The Northeast has experienced significant ice storms throughout history, and we may be due for another one. Though we see icing in many winter storms, including recent ones, major ice storms cause…

While walking through the woods in northern New Hampshire this past week, we spotted several areas where it looked like someone had spilled ground pepper on the snow. What’s happening here?

Ted Levin is a zoologist, photographer, and award-winning author. His essays have appeared in publications including Audubon, The New York Times, Sierra, and Sports Illustrated. He is the author of…

This week in the woods, we spied an immature bald eagle picking at a deer carcass on a frozen roadside pond. The United States’ newly designated national bird doesn’t always have its…

Snow patterns and tracks were the subjects of January, along with another round of birds and ice formations. Ann Pearce of Winooski, Vermont, discovered intricate frost patterns on her windows, Ford…

On a subzero morning, I clip into skis and head out across my meadow, gliding between desiccated husks of sundial lupine (Lupinus perennis) poking up above the snow. I imagine this spot eight months…

Driving on Vermont’s Interstate highways in winter, I often notice large hawks perched in trees on woodland edges at regular intervals along the road. With the stark landscape providing better…

Alicia Daniel is a naturalist and educator in Burlington, Vermont. She is the founder and director of Vermont Master Naturalist, has taught at the University of Vermont in the Field Naturalist Program…

This week in the woods, we observed a large flock of American robins feeding in a crabapple tree – and perhaps getting drunk. Because sugars in fruit can ferment over the course of the year,…

Reader Jackie Robidoux shared this image of a tree snag marked by...something? What is at the opening here? And what does it indicate?

In the starkness of winter, squirrel dreys reveal themselves in the tree canopy. They’ve been there all along — just screened by trees’ leafy crowns for much of the year. Dreys are…

This week in the woods, despite the frigidity, we found this snowfly marching and tumbling across the snow on Black Mountain in Benton, New Hampshire. These members of the wingless cranefly genus…

As the winter sun set on February 3, 2023, the Caribou, Maine branch of the National Weather Service (NWS) was flooded with reports of seismic activity. James Sinko, the office’s hydrology…

Heath Bunnell has worked in the woods since he was a kid, stacking wood and tagging along with his father and grandfather, although as a young man, he briefly lived in Alaska, working longline fishing…

We spotted this bitternut hickory, bedecked in wart-like baubles, in Foley Park in Norwich, Vermont. What are all these bumps on the tree’s trunk and branches?

Birds, ice, and frozen objects take the lead in this month’s collection. Sandy Dannis of Dalton, New Hampshire, submitted an image of ice feathers, Timothy Loftus photographed a northern…

This week in the woods, we observed indications of black knot, the fungal disease caused by Apiosporina morbosa or Dibotryon morbosum and only infecting species in the genus Prunus. It shows up on a…

Walking along a dirt road last winter, I heard a collection of pleasant, sputtering trills coming from a stand of conifers and hardwoods nearby. I’m used to the winter conversation of chickadees…

This week in the woods, we found the tiny, stalked fruiting bodies (or apothecia) of pink earth lichen. This colorful lichen prefers disturbed areas and the full sun of settings such as roadsides…

When I think about winter survival, my mind first goes to wildlife: field mice curling up in nests, chickadees flocking to bird feeders, and amphibians burrowing into the mud. Rarely do I think about…