What’s this on the snow?

One of the biggest criticisms of the media these days is that it’s objective to a fault. Consider the flack some editors have taken recently for giving equal time to both sides of the…

Most news about climate change focuses on the dramatic and the exotic: melting glaciers, rising sea level, the loss of polar bear habitat. Boston University field biologist Richard B. Primack makes it…

“Is the great purpose of our species to steal the lives and homes of millions of species and billions of creatures?” asks David Johns, one of the writers featured in Keeping the Wild:…

Thanks to the recent rapid compilation of insect photos at www.bugguide.com and other websites, identification of insects has never been easier. Art Evans has taken advantage of these resources and,…

We two-leggeds build inviting habitats and fill them with ample food supplies. We heat these spaces in winter, cool them in summer, and keep them dry year-round. And when our wild neighbors have the…

"The closer the connection we feel to nature, the more we're likely to stand up and defend it." - Charles Johnson How do hundreds of sawn discs hanging from a ceiling evoke a sense of being in the…

After bucking this year’s firewood, I found myself with a collection of odd-shaped ends and crotches, perfect for charcoal-making. Charcoal is essentially wood that’s been…

Who hasn’t marveled at a lacy snowflake coming to rest on a jacket sleeve? Do you wonder how it could survive the fall to earth in one piece, or if it’s really true that no two snowflakes…

There’s foreign matter on this tree trunk. What is it?

Detecting small mammal prey beneath a thick covering of snow is among the more challenging skills that some predators must develop to survive New England winters. Most use exceptional hearing and an…

The Clean Air Act, passed more than 40 years ago, continues to provide positive outcomes. The latest good news comes from a University of New Hampshire environmental scientist who reports that lakes…

This winter, a barred owl has been loitering around my house. My husband arbitrarily declared it a male (there’s no easy way to sex an owl) and we dubbed him Squinty McBold. “Bold”…

Trees sequester carbon from the atmosphere and play a key role in mitigating the effects of climate change. But a study by researchers at Dartmouth College found that from a climate perspective,…

The measure of a successful hunt depends on whom you ask; hunters are often biased by individual success or failure, whereas biologists take a detached, big-picture view. But this much is true: one of…

Looking closely at plants, we can learn a lot – about local habitat, climate, hydrology, wildlife, and soils. For example, succulent leaves indicate that a plant may thrive in sandy soil or…

For the past 14 years, my Winter Ecology students and I have spent a lot of time outdoors, studying the preferred habitat features and winter foods of snowshoe hares. We’re likely to find hare…

Richard Carbonetti sent us a series of these photos from the Northeast Kingdom. It isn’t a hiking trail; what is it?

If you were to describe deep, January cold to someone who’d never experienced it before, you might point out that you can hear it. Get below zero and the snow starts to squeak under foot. Your…

Tom Shafer’s business is mining trees. It’s not really harvesting; maybe re-harvesting. “Recovering a forgotten forest” is his company motto. He likes to think of it as mining.…