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…

This week in the woods, the spring chorus has simmered down, but there is still plenty of bird sound out there, including the “chick-brrr” of scarlet tanagers. The males appear as…

This week in the woods, we’ve noticed three different species of crane fly resting on leaves. At first glance, crane flies look like giant mosquitoes, but they’re harmless.…

The spring ephemeral wildflower show continues. Red trillium (wakerobin) and round-leaved violets are just coming into bloom, while bloodroot is continuing (notice how it folds up its leaves…

On a picture-perfect winter morning last year, 20 Saint Michael’s College students and I visited Vermont Fish and Wildlife scientists for ice fishing at Knight’s Point on Lake…

As we leaned over the Colchester Bog boardwalk, a student asked, “What’s that black stuff on the water?” I suggested gently poking it with a twig. This elicited the expected…

While sampling in the LaPlatte River, students noticed what looked like rough black pebbles about the size and shape of well-worn pencil erasers. I suppressed my mild distress as they started…

Imagine for a moment that you travel on all fours like other self-respecting quadrupeds. Extend your imagination yet a little more, and with it your body, so that a large dome-shaped…

A good friend was in touch; her son was enduring allergic reactions to mosquitoes and, like any good parent, she sought solutions. I told her that the most practical, non-toxic way to deal…

I was in southern Connecticut a few weeks back to pick my son up from college. While he took his last exam, I took myself up a local hiking trail. Connecticut black flies are as bad as their…

If you live near water, then beginning in late spring, you likely will have some fascinating insects flocking to your porch. Caddisflies might pass for gray, brown, or black moths, but they…

Come mid-January, when I’m acclimatized to Vermont’s winter, I enjoy an occasional stroll on the icy surface of Lake Champlain. I favor bays sheltered from the brunt of winter…

I have yet to hear of any snowy owls nearby this winter, although they’re on the move in the Northeast; Cornell’s eBird site includes recent sightings along the New England coast,…

In early November, I flicked on the porch light and took out the trash. In the brief time it took, a couple of late-season moths found their way to my porch light, and as I slipped through the…

“What’s this shiny black beetle with four eyes?” asked Erin Hayes-Pontius, a visiting UVM student, from her microscope. Without glancing up from my own scope I answered,…

Demery Coppola of Guilford, Connecticut, found this leaf on the Saint Michael's College campus in Vermont during her Environmental Science lab. Do you know what’s on its underside?