Four summers ago, Put Blodgett and I met to discuss Northern Woodlands’ editorial goals. Put was not a close friend, but I admired him very much as a renaissance man and force of nature. Among…
Furtive Flowers
A reader in the Finger Lakes region of New York sent in this photo of flowers he’d never spotted before. What are they?
Mary Hull: at Home and at Work in the Woods
As children, Mary Hull and her brothers spent afternoons playing at their family’s Pomfret, Connecticut, sawmill. These days, all three Hull siblings work in the family business, Hull Forest…
Black-throated Green Warblers: Singing Through Spring
This spring, as you walk outside, keep an ear open for two distinctive bird songs: zee zee zee zee zo zee or zee zee zo zo zee. If you hear them, you’ve identified a black-throated green warbler…
May: Week Four
This Week in the Woods, the small but spectacular spring wildflower fringed polygala (also called fringed milkwort and gaywings) is in bloom. This little evergreen reproduces both by pollination of…
Stinging Nettles: Friend or Foe?
I often watch out for stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) while hiking in central Vermont. As you might guess from its name, brushing against this plant causes a bee sting-like burn that can last for…
May: Week Three
This Week in the Woods, we spied this male blackburnian warbler hopping between branches in a hemlock tree and running his bill along the flat needles (no doubt to glean insects). Despite their bright…
Shaun Terhune: Wildlife Through the Lens
As a geologist-turned-professional photographer, Shaun Terhune has traveled extensively, including stints in the Arctic and the western U.S. But the close-knit communities and natural beauty of…
It’s a Bird. It’s a Plane. It’s…?
While driving north from New York City to New Hampshire, reader Liam Coyle spotted this large flock flying overhead, just after crossing into Connecticut on I-95. What are these birds?
April 2021
Your April photos showed sunny scenes of flowers blooming, newly arrived migratory birds, and snow-fed streams and lakes. All that bright light inspired some wildlife napping: Sally Duston snuck up on…
Yellow Birch: A Long-lived Northern Forest Tree
One summer, I took a nature drawing class, and we hiked up Vermont’s Stowe Pinnacle to sketch in the cool, mountain forest. I chose to draw a big yellow birch that had established itself on the…
May: Week Two
This Week in the Woods more warblers are returning, including this black-and-white warbler, which obligingly posed for a photo behind the Northern Woodlands office. Black-and-white warblers are…
Brown Creepers: Denizens of the Bark
On certain afternoons, if I time it just right, I may spot a brown creeper (Certhia americana) on the trunk of a tree in my front yard. Moving stealthily, almost imperceptibly up the tree, the brown…
May: Week One
This Week in the Woods, we’ve seen several pumpkin orange-colored anglewing (Polygonia) butterflies. After some expert input, we’re reasonably confident that the butterfly in the…
A Connecticut Quilt
Irregular Shelterwoods in a Rejuvenating Oak-Hickory Forest Looking downslope from the perimeter of a recent irregular shelterwood cut in Connecticut’s Yale-Myers Forest on a mid-July day,…
Bringing Back Wild Trout
Will Restoration Efforts Change Recreational Fishing? In his extensive profile, Brook Trout: A Thorough Look at North America’s Great Native Trout – Its History, Biology, and Angling…
Katrina Amaral Sees the Forests and the Trees
Katrina Amaral says she had lots of energy as a kid and expended much of that running around near her Stow, Massachusetts, home with the neighborhood kids or exploring the woods around her…
Ear’s Looking at You
We found this ear poking out from some logs and twitching now and then as it monitored outside activity. Whose ear is it? (Thanks to Tig Tillinghast for the photo).
Fly Flight Control
On sunny, warm days, house flies hatch and buzz around homes and offices. These flies complete aerobatic stunts that easily evade human efforts at swatting or shooing. That aerial agility, so…
April: Week Four
This Week in the Woods, this handsome raccoon passed our remote camera. It was likely heading to a nearby vernal pool for a frog feast; this time of year, we often find raccoon tracks in the mud…