102 results for declan

Occasionally I get an email from a camp, school, or even my local Rotary asking if I can present an insect program. So it was not unusual last week for me to be handing insect nets to excited…

While hiking with my son on Snake Mountain in Addison County, Vermont, I noticed a rather impressive millipede on the trail. When I think “millipede,” I usually think about small,…

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…

One spring, following heavy rain, I visited the Saint Michael’s College Natural Area hoping to capture exciting photographs of the rushing Winooski River. Rather than raging floodwaters,…

This Week in the Woods, lakes and rivers have opened up again, and hooded mergansers are back. As Michael Caduto notes in this Outside Story essay, hoodies are short-distance migrants and…

When my sisters visit from Ireland, I try to play tour guide, but I’m occasionally at a loss for what to do next. During a visit in the late 1990s, my sister Grace said she would love to…

On a clear mid-winter day several years ago, my student Sarah Wakefield and I pulled on snowshoes, donned backpacks, and headed up through Smuggler’s Notch. Our destination was Big…

Each spring, as melting snow liberates the forest floor, I seek out wildflowers. I flip through Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide, counting petals and leaves to tell hepaticas apart and to sort…

This Week in the Woods, we found this chipmunk peeking out of its winter burrow. There were no dignitaries in top hats to greet him, but the chippie did seem to inspect his shadow before…

This Week in the Woods, Northern Woodland’s assistant editor Meghan McCarthy McPhaul was “just skiing through the woods, lost in my thoughts, when a grouse burst out of the snow…

This Week in the Woods, and more specifically this past sunny Saturday, we noticed how the new snow in the fields glittered. As Meghan McCarthy McPhaul notes in this Outside Story essay, 5 to…

I consider the lack of biting insects and other invertebrates, to be a wondrous gift of the winter season. I can wander unmolested through wood and field absent the attentions of mosquitoes,…

While pursuing iNaturalist records of insects in the Saint Michael's College Natural Area, I noticed a species I had never encountered, and it was recorded at an unusual time of the year…

This Week in the Woods, the evenings are cold, the morning meadows are frosted with ice. It’s time to get out the winter coats. In bogs, purple pitcher plants are even more eye-catching…

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…

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…

Some of my favorite children’s books describe life cycles as heroic tales of persistence and redemption. From The Ugly Duckling to The Very Hungry Caterpillar to A Seed is Sleeping,…

Last July, Rich Kelley posted a most unusual photograph to the Vermont Birding Facebook group with the caption, “Someone bit off more than he could chew.” The photo, taken in the…

This Week in the Woods, we’ve noticed bright green lungwort lichen, which grows on the trunks of both conifers and hardwoods. Because of its lettuce-like appearance, it’s easy to…

Large fishing spiders walking on water can be fascinating – or terrifyingly unnerving. The latter reaction is common among Saint Michael's College students as we sample…