My three children have participated in a Four Winds Nature Institute program that recruits adult family members to lead grade-school nature learning. I have worked with several moms and dads over the…

It’s sales season on Christmas tree farms and, borrowing from Dave Mance’s “Dispatches from the Sugarwoods” that regularly appear in this space during the spring, here’s…

What are these white bits on the moss-covered rock?

Plants and trees are seldom considered to have acute senses – at least, not like those of many mammals. But scientists at the University of Western Australia discovered that plants have far more…

In your November photos, a bear waved, a squirrel sunbathed, and a mature buck faced down the camera. Ducks swam through foliage reflected on water, and hikers explored an old quarry. We’re now…

I followed a stream downhill through the woods as it coursed through a small ravine. At the base of the hill, just before the brook entered a wetland, a patch of unusual-looking plants was growing…

Like many people who watch birds, I have my favorites. The nuthatches, for instance. Quirky little birds. Shaped like stubby cigars, with their short tails and thick necks. And that disconcerting…

Hunting is portrayed idyllically by those who love it – you can see it here in this beautiful PR shot from the Fish and Wildlife department. The eager young lad and the sage mentor, likely his…

Spotted on a Christmas tree farm, it’s taller than many of the young trees and still standing straight in late November. What is this plant?

This picture of an amazingly ambitious golden eagle was taken in West Virginia and submitted by Brian Kain to biologist Kevin Oxenrider, who then submitted it to Todd Katzner, who works for the U.S.…

Building a second career to follow a very successful first career is a challenge. When those two careers are as different as, say, being an accountant and operating a lumber company, well,…

A predator’s physical senses determine the manner in which it hunts. Wild canids, for instance, favor their sense of smell – you can see this as they trot along the hedgerows, noses in the…

The mixed hardwood forest on the edge of the town of Dalton in western Massachusetts looks healthy to the untrained eye, but the researchers from the University of Massachusetts who visited the site…

A couple years back, a reader gave me a copy of Robert Macfarlane’s Landmarks, which explores the rich duff of British language related to place and seasonal change. It’s a remarkable book…

Eight years ago, my husband and I planted 128 fruit trees on a hillside, mostly apples, but the back few rows included stone fruits. Our apples began producing with gusto after only a few years. We…

On an early spring evening in March 2017, a large crowd packed a public meeting in Ware, Massachusetts, to discuss a controversial proposal to establish a rattlesnake colony at the nearby Quabbin…

A few years ago, I started an observational experiment in forest succession on a couple of acres where we once pastured sheep and goats. Rocky and wet, without livestock it was hard to keep cleared.…

What happened to these beech trees?

One of our regular magazine contributors sent me this email this week: An awful thing happened this weekend here in Plainfield. I was walking in the fields near my house with my little dog Henry and…

Berries abound in your October photos, which depict a basket full of lowbush or true cranberries, so-called highbush cranberries hanging from a Viburnum, and the lovely but toxic fruit of blue cohosh.…