When I was ten, I carried a tin can of worms and a battered fishing rod to the wild shores of Brickyard Pond, in the woods behind our subdivision. We caught mostly scrappy sunfish and white perch,…

The New England settlement story is a familiar narrative. We all know the tale: farms hacked out of daunting woods in the eighteenth century, rolling Agricultural lands in the nineteenth century, and…

Northern Woodlands is pleased to announce that the winner of our Orvis HELIOS 2 fly rod and reel raffle is Betty J. Dobson of West Boothbay Harbor, Maine. Congratulations Betty! Thank you to everyone…

Photographer John Timmis captured this image on Wilson Pond in Greenville, Maine. “She would disappear underwater going after aquatic vegetation,” he remembered, “causing the flies…

Let’s start out with a riddle: What animal has 16 toes and a tail that breaks off when grabbed by a predator? Not sure? Here’s another clue: It’s the smallest terrestrial vertebrate…

Reader Judy Brook took this picture while kayaking the LaPlatte River in Shelburne, VT. What is it?

I’m holding my daughter up to a jar. It’s a quart jar, initially used for syrup, more recently serving as my improvised coffee-to-go container, and now in its third career as the parsley…

While the difference between a deer trail and a hiking trail may be obvious, what makes a trail good for feet is not always what makes a trail great for tires. Whereas hikers (and deer) tend to be…

Twenty years ago when I bought my farm I made a snap decision to clear some woods near the house, all the way back to the stone wall. Out came the chainsaw and trees started crashing down. I never…

Aldo Leopold, a famous conservationist, once wrote: “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.” This whole idea puts nature writers in…

This snipe fly was found in Thetford, Vermont, dead and smooshed against a sugar maple leaf. What killed the fly?

I’ve gotten addicted to the television show “Breaking Bad” over the last few months, watching old episodes back to back on Netflix. At one part in Season 3, Gus, a civilized…

“I’ve got some pellets here.” “Here’s a run!” The run was a path in the snow made by rabbits – specifically, rare and imperiled New England cottontails. The…

In years when the snow is deep, voles, the most abundant mammal in the Northeast, thrive. When the snow recedes, the glaring white of rodent-chewed bark shows up on saplings along field edges,…

It can be difficult for beginning foragers to make the leap beyond the most familiar wild foods. For those who want to expand their repertoires beyond ramps, fiddleheads, and blueberries, I cannot…

In early summer, my roses are buzzing with bees. European honeybees from my hives are tripping over the tiny metallic native bees while burly black and yellow bumblebees, the sumo wrestlers in this…

Four native fish species. Left to right, what are they?

OK, so back to the clearcut. (If you missed Part 1 of the blog, read it here.) By meeting certain silvicultural criteria, and by agreeing to execute the clearcut in a bird-friendly way (nothing…

On the first 70 degree day of the year we took a UTV ride up to the top of the ridge behind camp, G and I. She’s originally from Wyoming, so she sees the forests around here with fresh eyes.…

The heavy rains of late have turned some homeowners in our region into hydraulic engineers, their sump pumps working overtime to pump rainwater out of flooded basements. When saddled with such a…