Alissa Wetherbee grew up exploring and working in the woods on Maine’s Mount Desert Island – home of Acadia National Park. In her early 20s, Alissa discovered logging sports competitions…
May 2024
We were happily overwhelmed by the quality and diversity of images submitted for May. Thank you to everyone who submitted photos for consideration! Selected images included painted trilliums,…
June: Week Two
This week in the woods, we enjoyed our office backyard “moth ball” with lepidopterist JoAnne Russo, who identified a whopping 86 different moth species flitting through the night sky of…
How Severe Flooding Impacts Aquatic Life
July 2023 was the hottest month ever recorded worldwide, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Rising temperatures associated with climate change have dramatically…
Annual Moth Ball 2024
When: June 7th 2024 8:30 PM
Where: at Northern Woodlands Backyard
16 On The Common, Lyme, NH, 03768
Lepidopterist JoAnne Russo will transform our backyard into a moth stage. We invite you to observe and learn! Bring a camera or cell phone, a head lamp or small flashlight, and some eye protection…
NH Gives 2024
On June 11 - 12 from 5 PM to 5 PM, NH Gives will go live, and we hope you will consider giving to our native plant pollinator garden campaign. NH Gives is a 24-hour period of giving that allows you to…
June: Week One
This week in the woods, we discovered a wild turkey egg tucked within a decaying tree stump and partly covered with moss and wood. To figure out what had happened, we checked with Northern Woodlands…
The Many and Varied Ways Caterpillars Avoid Predation
In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Alice stumbles upon a large mushroom. She peeps over the edge and encounters a caterpillar “smoking a long hookah, and taking not the…
Issue 121: Summer 2024 $9.00
This issue features Future Climate-Adapted Tree Species, TimberHP, Paul Tuller’s One Tree Project, What’s Happening to the Fisher, and much more! Order a copy of this issue or visit…
At Home in the Trees
The summer I was 23, I lived in a treehouse in the Maine woods. My boyfriend, Curry, and I had just returned to the state after an unsuccessful attempt to start careers in Colorado, near my family.…
Three-Birds Orchid
August ushers in the season of satiety, an interval of repose. Botanically speaking, it is what I refer to as the “Lammas-time lull,” a dip in the calendar of bloom when the plant world…
Juvenile Gray Treefrogs on Land
If there is an amphibian that is a master of disguise, it has to be the gray treefrog (Hyla versicolor). The adults of this species are capable of changing color (gray, green, or brown) to match their…
Future Climate-Adapted Tree Species
This article is the second in a four-part series that focuses on climate change impacts and adaptation in forests. A companion series published last year focused on forest carbon. Alexandra Kosiba, a…
Electrofishing Supports Fisheries Research and Management
A couple of years ago, I joined colleagues from University of Rhode Island and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management for a day of fieldwork studying brook trout (Salvelinus…
Native vs. Introduced Phragmites ID Checklist
The Summer 2024 issue of Northern Woodlands includes an article by Michael Freeman, describing efforts to reduce the impacts of invasive phragmites (also called common reed), an especially aggressive…
What’s Happening to the Fisher?
An Elusive Carnivore Confronts New Challenges
In 2010, my dog treed a young fisher in the woods bordering my neighbor’s Christmas tree farm. I was surprised to spot the animal in this portion of southeastern New Hampshire, within 5 miles of…
When Life Hands You Chokeberries…Make Juice
Here’s a botanical riddle: What has fruits that look like a juneberry, flowers that look like a blackberry, leaves that look like an apple, and a name that sounds like a cherry? Answer: The…
1,000 Words
Richard Silliboy, vice chief of the Mi’kmaq Nation, uses splints of brown ash (also known as black ash) to weave a basket in his studio near Houlton, Maine. Silliboy participates in the Ash…
Feral Forest Apples
It is not uncommon to find an apple tree deep in the woods, a reminder that the forest-dominated landscape we know today is relatively recent. In the 1800s, farmers cleared much of the region for…