We’ve reached that point of autumn where there seem to be as many leaves on the ground as there are left clinging to trees and shrubs and vines. A quick leaf-gathering walk near the Northern…

This Week in the Woods, puffballs have ripened and want you to stomp them. A favorite among kids, these fungi produce millions of tiny spores inside their fruiting bodies. Once the spores are ready to…

Your September photos included mountain scenes and bright leaves, chicken of the woods fungi in the woods and American lady butterflies out in the fields. Michelle Wainer encountered a little-seen…

When John McNerney moved from Ohio to Vermont about 20 years ago, he didn’t know much about forest management, processing firewood, or tackling invasive species. An economics major in college,…

Published in July 2011, Fascinating Fungi of New England is the first book to be devoted exclusively to New England mushrooms. It is written in a non-technical language and contains full color…

Although the largest vertebrate that has ever lived is the female blue whale, in most species of birds and mammals, males are larger than their mates. In birds of prey (hawks, falcons, eagles, and…

One morning in early autumn, I was running errands in downtown Keene, New Hampshire, when I was stopped in my tracks by a flash of yellow. Crouching down, I found a gorgeous, palm-sized bird, olive…

This Week in the Woods, we encountered a flock of palm warblers flitting back and forth between a corn field edge and trees along the Ompompanoosuc River. The birds breed in boreal forests, typically…

Jockey Hill Farm in Shrewsbury, Vermont has been in the Stout family since 1942. It has been protected by a conservation easement since the early 1990s and been enrolled in Vermont’s Current Use…

Imagine a deck of playing cards that allows you to play a game of gin rummy and also offers an invitation to explore our northern forests and to understand them in a deeper way. David George Haskell,…

Bush pilot John Knox, an old friend of mine from Piseco, a small community located in the heart of the Adirondacks, allowed me to copy this photo from his family collection many years ago. This is a…

“I’ve got something for you,” my husband calls from the front door. He’s found an oddly beautiful beetle in the autumn woods. It’s around three quarters of an inch long,…

This Week in the Woods, we found approximately 50 wood ducks perched together in trees along a river. In the Northeast, migration occurs from September to November. Although some wood ducks will…

Arising before dawn in ritual pursuit aware of austerity, sharp, acute a chill that has settled and defines for a time the spoils of silently watching. As the hoary frost on crimson leaves succumbs to…

After her own two children transitioned from preschool to kindergarten, Nicole MacKay became a teacher at Gale River Cooperative Preschool (GRCP) in Franconia, New Hampshire. Two years ago, the school…

We found these funky fungi with curled back, slimy caps growing in a mixed hardwood stand in central Vermont. What are these?

The deep purple caught my eye, an unexpected color amid the autumn-hued palette of gold, red, and orange. I stooped to look more closely, thinking perhaps someone had dropped some manmade thing on…

This Week in the Woods, we found this Wilson’s snipe in a local wetland. These birds look like elongated versions of their distant cousins, American woodcocks (both in the sandpiper family), and…

In September, as summer yields to fall, most of the colorful birds that breed in our region during spring and summer head south for warmer locales. The departure of ruby-throated hummingbirds,…

This Week in the Woods, we brushed up against some tree bark, and it flew away, flashing pink stripes as it went. Happily, this underwing moth didn’t go far. Once it had settled back into a…