The northern cardinal, crimson and crested, is an avian icon, one of the most recognizable birds on the continent. But the rosebreasted grosbeak is also a cardinal. So is the scarlet tanager. Even…

Every morning, my pool is the scene of six-legged tragedies: chunky beetles puttering around on the surface, looking for a leaf-cum-life preserver; a few flies long since deceased. Once, the surface…

Jim Hedbor, of Grand Isle County, Vermont, has been collecting moths for decades, but he has a distinct memory of one special night of moth hunting. He was on Cold Hollow Mountain in northern…

This suspicious slitherer was photographed in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Do you know what kind of snake this is?

Chances are that some of your friends and business associates have a boilerplate at the bottom of their email that says something to the effect of: “think twice before printing this.” The…

Eastern hemlock is an important component of the forest. Hemlock stands provide nesting habitat for a slew of bird species, such as the blackburnian warbler, and brook trout congregate in stream…

I’ll always remember the time I ran into a wire fence at dusk. I was taking a shortcut through some woods, and the impact sent me tumbling. Even when I looked carefully, I could barely discern…

Cedric Pollet’s Bark: An Intimate Look at the World’s Trees ranks with the day in November 1972 when I walked into Chartres Cathedral and saw the magnificent stained-glass windows. Words…

The late summer air is cool and heavy as I reach the trailhead. To hike through a forest at night is to move through a world dominated no longer by sight but by sound and smell. Nearing a spot on the…

At this time of year, it’s the caterpillars eating leaves in the garden or the deer flies after our blood that get most of our attention. But behind the scenes are many insects that eat other…

Northern Woodlands’ subscriber Katie Koerten came across these cups of black kernels while exploring a wooded area in a Vermont bog. What are they?

A few weeks back, I was visited by two city friends from Brooklyn. In the interest of cultural exchange, I figured I’d make venison steaks and fresh-caught wild trout for dinner – a sort…

I first heard about hairy-chested yeti crabs while driving home one night, listening to NPR. Robert Siegel was interviewing Alex Rogers, an Oxford biologist. Rogers led a research team that discovered…

It occurred to me recently, after spotting a white-feathered American robin scampering along a dirt road, normal-colored robins alongside him, that in all my years of observing wildlife and working…

Photographer Tod Seelie spent last summer in Philadelphia working on the Miss Rockaway Armada, a largescale art project. “During our building phase,” Seelie said, “a massive heat…

Healthy forests play an absolutely vital role in moderating water movement over our landscape. Although forests cannot prevent large floods outright, they certainly do minimize the frequency,…

Those of us who enjoy forestry and baseball get a kick out of watching professional ballplayers stride to bat holding little pieces of the northern forest in their hands, though if you’re not a…

What’s got these maple leaves so pink?

Inchworms are one of the few creepy-crawlies I let skulk across my bare skin. Who doesn’t delight in the ridiculous arching of the worm’s body, followed by the exaggerated, full-body…

“Currently there is no environmental ethic focused on meeting wood needs locally and little criticism of consumption behavior. Instead, an anti-logging ethic reigns and degradation of the…