After her own two children transitioned from preschool to kindergarten, Nicole MacKay became a teacher at Gale River Cooperative Preschool (GRCP) in Franconia, New Hampshire. Two years ago, the school…

We found these funky fungi with curled back, slimy caps growing in a mixed hardwood stand in central Vermont. What are these?

The deep purple caught my eye, an unexpected color amid the autumn-hued palette of gold, red, and orange. I stooped to look more closely, thinking perhaps someone had dropped some manmade thing on…

This Week in the Woods, we found this Wilson’s snipe in a local wetland. These birds look like elongated versions of their distant cousins, American woodcocks (both in the sandpiper family), and…

In September, as summer yields to fall, most of the colorful birds that breed in our region during spring and summer head south for warmer locales. The departure of ruby-throated hummingbirds,…

This Week in the Woods, we brushed up against some tree bark, and it flew away, flashing pink stripes as it went. Happily, this underwing moth didn’t go far. Once it had settled back into a…

Your August photos showed woody landscape scenes, as well as an abundance of late summer small life, from a temporarily blue-eyed snake to the unfortunately named bleeding teeth fungi. Although summer…

Geologist Peter Thompson photographed these rocks in East Thetford, Vermont. What is the rock type, and what would you call structures like this?

Growing up in suburban Washington, D.C, during the 1960s, Susan Hayward considered herself a “serious science kid.” During college at the University of Maine, she turned her attention to…

I have often been stopped in my tracks by the sight of a white-tailed doe standing in the lush summer grass. Depending on the sun’s slant, the animal’s coat is a rich shade of rusty brown…

This Week in the Woods, we’ve been paying closer attention to bumblebees. Like most other pollinators, they’re winding down their year as the weather cools. Unlike honeybee hives, which…

The grackle appeared early last spring, the day before I put the feeder away (so as not to tempt the bears who would soon be awakening from their winter dens). In the dim light of a cloudy day, this…

This Week in the Woods, we never actually made it into the woods, because we got distracted by so much interesting life at the trees’ edge. We found this great egret stalking frogs in a roadside…

When I was in college, some friends found a patch of amaranth growing wild in the school’s community garden, and we decided to try to make flour from its seeds. This was before the internet…

This time of year, summer’s bounty of blooming things is transitioning from flower to fruit. The first image was shared by Bruce Lindwall of Craftsbury, Vermont, who wrote, “There may be places…

The hikers are visibly exhausted as they trudge the final steps toward the summit of Mount Marcy – past the “Revegetation Area” cordoned off with string fence and the plaque…

During the summer months, after breeding in a body of water, northern leopard frogs (Lithobates pipiens) are often found in wet, grassy meadows. Come fall, they typically migrate toward the shoreline…

Murph and I had ducked into the woods in Phippsburg around 9:30 a.m., hoping to escape the July heat. No spring chickens, we ambled more than we hiked and only covered a few miles before taking an…

For six weeks every October and November, Sean Flint spends two or three days a week walking through thick underbrush in Vermont and flushing ruffed grouse with his dog, Finn. Last year, Flint (who is…

When he was about 6 years old, Brad Johnson drew a stick figure holding an axe and a saw and titled it “The Tree Cutter.” Still, it was a surprise – to Brad, his wife, and his…