John Fadden grew up within the Mohawk community of Akwesasne, which comprises bits of northern New York and southern Ontario and Quebec. In 1954, his parents, Ray and Christine Fadden, opened the Six…

As in preceding months, we’ve divided reader photos into two galleries, to be published with succeeding newsletters. In this first gallery, Frank Gorga discovered an especially well positioned…

As I waded in Lake Champlain one summer, a fellow bather explained that just a little farther out, refreshing spring water would cool my feet. I have heard that old wives’ tale repeated at Lake…

This Week in the Woods, the winds are blowing, migrating sparrows are hopping around fields and lawns, and more than once this week we’ve discovered a pair of spiky balls perched high in the…

Sitting in a grassy field at Townshend State Park on a late summer day, I watched dozens of dragonflies roaming the sky. Their slender bodies drifted in and out of view as they rode the air currents.…

This Week in the Woods, we’ve been enjoying the much-needed rain, as well as occasional glimpses of migratory birds. In a typical year, staghorn sumac, a common shrub of field edges and…

With the invasive Emerald Ash Borer expanding its range in New England, ash trees are facing an existential threat. In central Maine, where the Wabanaki tribes have long practiced the art of Brown Ash…

George Washington Sears wrote for Forest & Stream (now Field & Stream) magazine under the pen name Nessmuk, a tribute to his Narragansett Indian childhood mentor who taught him traditional…

Naturalist, artist, and writer Clare Walker Leslie inspires people around the world to pay attention to the nature around them and to discover their own distinct way of reflecting and recording their…

Patty Cormier spent much of her childhood in the Maine woods and has devoted her professional life to helping manage the state’s forests. She worked for 20 years as a District Forester for the…

A Tale of Two Berries: What's going on in this picture?

New England is home to dozens of species of mammals, hundreds of varieties of birds, and tens of thousands of different insects, but only one lizard: the five-lined skink. Though I am fond of reptiles…

This Week in the Woods, the ongoing severe drought conditions are taking a toll, from dried up streams to withered plants. The dry weather also negatively impacts insect populations. All the more…

Plenty of backyard birdwatchers consider blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata) the villains of the avian world. Mark Twain best summarized anti-blue jay sentiment when he compared the bird’s…

This Week in the Woods, it’s so dry out there. A good time to explore otherwise-soggy cellar holes and other low places. Several species of unfortunately-named beggar-ticks are in bloom. They…

We discovered a series of these shallow holes, about 2 inches wide, underneath an eastern white pine tree. Who made them – and why?

In this second installment of our August Reader Photo Gallery, Harriet Szanto discovered a hummingbird perched in a tree, Ron Becker found a red admiral perched on boneset, and Eric and Amy Girardi…

My students and I have pit-trapped invertebrates in Camp Johnson in Colchester, Vermont, annually since 2006. We sink liquid-filled plastic tubes into the ground to intercept forest-floor…

Before he was an outdoor educator, Scott Ellis was a student of the woods and rivers. Now in his fourth year as the Outdoor Program Coordinator at Thetford Academy in Vermont, Ellis teaches a…

The September before my daughter was born, my husband and I went for our last pre-baby hike around Camel’s Hump. We stopped for a snack on the ridgeline, and as we sat munching granola bars we…