My visit to Thom Egan’s Hardwick, Vermont, studio this early spring came at the end of a very long, gray winter. It felt like my rods and cones – the retina’s receptors for light and…

Imagine you're an insect cruising through the air. Suddenly, you realize you're heading straight for a spider web. You're doomed. But wait – you can still escape by slipping through…

What is happening with this (now dead) caterpillar that Karla Salathe photographed in South Sutton, New Hampshire? Bonus question, what type of leaf is it on?

As I crested the hill, I raised my head and hit the brakes. Standing in the road just 40 feet in front of me was a female moose. In a car, this sort of experience is terrifying. But I was on a bike,…

Photo Essay: The Brook Trout, Theology of a Quaker Logger, Big Trees of New Hampshire, Adirondack Canoe Classic, Timber Theft, Autumn’s Mast, Timber Rattlesnakes, and much more

In the last installment of Tricks of the Trade, we examined the venerable peavey, and offered several modifications to make an already invaluable tool even handier. Now it’s time to head to the…

Perhaps you’ve caught a glimpse in your headlights of a mouse with a very long tail, leaping across the road at night. Or maybe your cat has deposited a specimen on your doorstep. This is the…

The materials that birds use to build their nests vary widely between species, from twigs and grasses to mud and even their own saliva. Hawks typically use coarse, dry branches and twigs as primary…

In northern states, where deep snowpack causes deer to spend much of the winter under the dense canopy of evergreen stands, the animals’ nitrogen-rich waste may be making the soil less favorable…

Northern Woodlands co-founder and former editor Steve Long found this design in the heartwood of a maple tree he was bucking for firewood. People in Orange County, Vermont, are justly proud of their…

Satellites are commonly used to monitor large-scale environmental changes, and airplanes are often used to get a clearer picture of the overall health of particular forests. Now, a plant pathologist…

I don’t often shake down my cat for a dead mouse, but I did think it was fair, considering that he is always shaking me down for his cat food.  I wasn’t going to eat his mouse. …

If you’re into nature, you may also be into skulls. And if you’re into skulls, you’ve probably struggled with skull processing. To do it right you need a terrarium and some dermestid…

Meghan Oliver spotted this wild scene on a tree in Vermont. Do you know what these striped creatures are?

Nearly 40 years ago, I discovered some curious bear feeding sign on a mid-elevation ridgeline in northern Vermont. A pole-sized bigtooth aspen had been peeled to its roots like a banana. Strips of…

Toddlers aren’t the only ones fond of mud puddles. Butterflies and moths often gather at puddles in large groups. I witnessed about thirty tiger swallowtail butterflies around a puddle on a…

Donnie Hardwick Jr. is a spitting image of his father. In the picture hanging in the lobby of the family business, Donnie Sr. sports a scraggly beard, wide-rimmed glasses, and a blue crocheted hat…

The ice storm of 1998 provided a lesson on the resilience of the northern forest. The precipitation started falling on January 5th, and for four days the gargantuan ice storm of 1998 pounded northern…

The bank in front of our house is a dense tangle of arching canes and thorns as large as cat claws. I wriggle further in, lips pressed against the pain of scratches and fingers straining for that…

These wood chip piles were observed near each other on a walk in the woods early last winter. Each pile was found at the base of a tree. What made each chip pile?