Each fall, thousands of broad-winged hawks soar across the New England sky in flocks known as kettles, on their way to wintering grounds in South and Central America. The sky swirls with hawks…

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 flashes…

To the Northern Woodlands community, As communicators, we recognize the importance of what stories we share, how stories are told, and who tells them. These editorial choices are ultimately decisions…

Asher Brown grew up in Lyme, New Hampshire, just up the road from the current Northern Woodlands office. He’s worked as a ski patroller at the Middlebury Snow Bowl, on the Hut Croo for the…

Bob Shafto of Falmouth, Maine, submitted this photo of a fuzzy growth he found attached to a white oak seedling. What is it?

This week in the woods, we’ve been finding flies smooshed to the underside of tree leaves. This is the gruesome work of a parasitic fungus. Although not well understood, the process appears to…

There’s a story about an early tourist from New York City who stopped his horse and buggy to watch a farmer harvesting a spring crop of rocks from his land. The farmer was loading rocks onto a…

I grew up on a street lined with tall, stately elms. While walking to school one day, I found a bird’s nest that the wind had blown down. The nest was a beautiful, silky gray pouch. My teacher…

This week in the woods, and lawns, and perhaps in your garden, American toads are on the hop, hunting nighttime insects. Although most are predominantly brown or gray, some are more orange. Whatever…

Ali Thomas is the Education Manager for the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department. In this role, she manages the state’s Green Mountain Conservation Camp (unfortunately canceled this summer due…

We discovered this orange marshmallow complete with its own campfire stick. What is it? 

Your May photos featured numerous wildflowers, from the show-stopping fringed polygala to a rare light-colored variation of red trillium. Asa Nijensohn photographed geese in the midst of a…

Many of us avoid close encounters of the eight-legged kind, but if you’ve ever come eye to eye with a spider, you’ve probably noticed they have several more eyes than we do: most have four…

This week, we’re straying out of the woods, and out of our “15 miles from the office” rule, to share a photo by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul of a snapping turtle crossing a road in Sugar…

When the Wild River Wilderness in the White Mountain National Forest was designated in 2006, wilderness management policy called for removal of all man-made structures. The Blue Brook Shelter, one of…

Twenty years ago, an unprecedented land deal rocked northern New York and New England. The model of shared ownership that emerged changed the way land is conserved in the Northeast. Journalist David…

When Champion International sold off its industrial timberland in northern Vermont two decades ago, the state of Vermont became a key piece in the mosaic of new owners and land managers. Filmmaker Ben…

Museum of Hand Tools Nine hours after we start, Strings bellows, Tool count. Everyone halts in mid-swing & lays tools upon trail as if at a museum of hand tools. We count & re-count –…

One of the significant changes in the culture and economy of the northern forest has been the transition from small-scale logging to mechanized logging. Talking with a handful of cable-and-skidder…

Some people have life birds, species of birds they’ve waited their whole lives to see in the wild. I don’t have one of these, but I do have a life mole. I’ve been waiting to catch a…