The Karner blue, New Hampshire’s state butterfly, is a wisp of a thing, a tiny fluttering of silvery-blue wings. Unless you happen to be wandering through a pine barren or black-oak savannah,…

Because different species and varieties of trees break bud at different times, there’s a big variance in the amount of new growth this time of year at Christmas tree farms. Using the new foliage as…

Now that the weather has improved, I’ve been out on my bike more. A couple years ago I wrote a blog about the wildlife you can see from your bike seat, and how this quiet mode of travel often…

Human life can, at times, seem chaffingly structured. We rise at the same time every day and make little daily migrations to the same building; come home and make dinner at 7, an act that’s so…

Jack-in-the-pulpits (Arisaema triphyllum) are not the most colorful spring flowers, but what they lack in beauty they make up for in interesting characteristics. These easily-identified plants are…

The first documented reports surfaced in the mid-1990s, sending waves of concern up and down the chain of Rangeley Lakes in western Maine: smallmouth bass – illegally introduced into Umbagog…

Editors’ Note: We tend to think of forestland as being either publicly owned or privately owned. But tens of thousands of acres in the Northeast fall into the category of “other.”…

Parts of the arid West are so biologically different than the temperate East that they seem like they’re on a different planet. Even places that sound like they should be familiar – a…

Many people who profess to know nothing about wild plants forget that they enjoyed eating wood sorrel (Oxalis spp.) greens as children. It’s a common childhood experience and I can think of no…

As a birder for nearly 60 years, I’ve managed to enrage a few nesting birds. Arctic terns in New Brunswick once drew blood from my scalp. Canada geese in Ohio charged and hissed at me. And a…

The first time that invasive plant specialist Jeff Taylor laid eyes on the Mink Brook Nature Preserve in Hanover, New Hampshire, he didn’t want the job. “I couldn’t even see the…

Located in the scenic foothills of northwest Connecticut, Enders Falls is a unique, quarter-mile-long chain of five waterfalls and associated pools, ledges, and gorges. The waterfalls are the main…

To the delight of all who revel in the grace and beauty of nature, bald eagles are soaring above New England in numbers unseen for over a century. We’ve come a long way since the days when poor…

What is hiding beneath the leaves?

I am walking backwards in the woods, wearing a bicycle helmet, and experiencing an intense surge of cowardice. In one of my hands is a stick. On top of that stick, held aloft like a knightly pennant,…

From a den full of fox kits to fledgling owls, a common theme of your May photos was young life in the woods. Turtles basked, birds showed off their mating plumage, and a swarm of hot bees cooled off…

Our dying orchard was demolished during a frigid February storm that exposed the earth’s bones. My daughter, who had studied environmental science in college, suggested we not worry. Nature, she…

I’ll never forget my first encounter with lady’s slippers. While hiking the Long Trail in southern Vermont one June, we camped near a remote pond. Our tent site beneath an evergreen canopy…

Wuk-wuk-wuk-wuk! With a rattling call, a large bird took off from a tree and flew in an undulating fashion across our field towards the woods. It was black and the size of a crow, but flashes of white…

It’s the beginning of another mowing season, and green is only one of many colors found on most rural lawns. While yellow dandelions are seemingly everywhere, these small white and purple flowers…