With late November’s trees free of leaves, things once hidden have been revealed. Laury Saligman shared this photo of clumps of leaves and twigs in a cluster of trees. What are they?

We opened camp this year on Friday in the midst of a snow squall, though it took less than 24 hours for the weather to devolve into what has passed, in recent years, as the same ol’, same…

While it is well known that wind causes trees to sway, University of Connecticut researcher Mark Rudnicki says that the movement of trees also affects the wind. “Wind gusts have a structure that…

As any biologist will tell you, different species of animal can’t breed with one another. Well, they can, but nature has a way of jumping in and nipping such cross pollination in the bud. For…

Nope, this is not another early snowfall. But what is this fluffy, white stuff on the ground?

When we think about human overpopulation – the ticker hit 7,000,000,000 this past week – we might think globally first: to ship breakers in Bangladesh, or the slums outside Sao Paulo.…

Global travel raises concerns among public health officials that a disease outbreak in one part of the world will quickly and easily spread elsewhere. The same is commonly believed to be true with…

The chemical compounds in lichens have long been known to have antibiotic and antiviral properties. Pharmaceutical companies have been studying these properties for years. But recently, scientists…

On September 1, Steve Long will be leaving Northern Woodlands for a fellowship at Harvard Forest. Long founded the magazine with Virginia Barlow, and served as editor and executive director from 1994…

If you’re a fan of a good, old-fashioned New England winter, with snow piling up under the eaves, you’ll be pleased to know that we’re going to have a La Niña this year. If you…

The New England cottontail rabbit once hopped through much of New England, thriving in the old fields, shrubby thickets, and young forests that defined our region. But the landscape has changed…

Kyle Jones took this close-up shot of a tree's root wad with a small hole at its center. What do you suppose made this hole?

As the mobs of cars around wildlife check-in stations suggest, moose season is underway in Vermont and New Hampshire. Maine’s between seasons at the moment, but hunting will resume in late…

I was eating breakfast when I noticed a black duck quietly feeding on our small pond. It would occasionally “tip-up” — head underwater, tail skyward — in typical puddle duck…

The Connecticut River – the boundary between Vermont and New Hampshire – is often referred to as a great river, a distinction based on its diverse four state watershed and its key role in…

Soon after the ice storm in January 1998, I passed through an apple orchard on my way uphill to an ice-shattered woodlot. The birches surrounding the orchard were bent into, the maples were a terrible…

Penny Harris of Cambridge, Vermont took this photo of a pine branch near her home. What’s protruding from the branches?

Henry David Thoreau admired a hand-made axe handle in a journal entry made more than 150 years ago: “Those made by hand are considered stronger than those which are turned (on a machine),…

Last weekend, my four-year-old niece asked me why leaves turn red. Dang it; why couldn’t she have asked me an easier one? Like, why do leaves turn green? Or even yellow? Nobody knows precisely…

The tree in question is conical, its cones dangling from skyward-curving branches, scaly bark covering its tapered trunk. Short, four-sided needles radiate spirally from each twig – unlike…