Alpine plants grow where they do because mountain summits are cold, icy, windy, snowy – but also sunlit, dry, and hot. Alpine plants are directly vulnerable to warming temperatures, and…

For as long as the blacklegged tick has been expanding its range in the Northeast, many have thought that cold winters limit its geographic range. This belief in part derived from laboratory studies…

The American marten (Martes americana) and fisher (Pekania pennanti) are closely related inhabitants of the Northern Forest region. Both species have been impacted by historical trapping and forest…

Mammals and birds are endotherms, which means they generate their own body heat through relatively high metabolic rates. That high metabolism requires energy, which these animals garner from food. We…

Atop Cannon Mountain (elev. 4,081 feet) in Franconia, New Hampshire, we spotted feathery white formations growing sideways from trees and the railings of an observation tower at the summit. What is…

Bill Novacek’s first job out of high school was at a sawmill in the Berkshires. In 1981, he moved north to Coos County in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, where his connection to wood…

A flash of orange streaks across the meadow – a red fox, like a starburst in the snow. Its fur shimmers in the early morning light, and I, bundled in my winter layers and still shivering cold,…

Winter rambles often take me to East Woods in South Burlington, Vermont. While birders gaze skyward, I find myself drawn to movement on the ground. Snow cover reduces invertebrate numbers, and those…

Your December photos included ice bells, fast-flowing meltwater, blaze orange fungi, and winter tree work by beavers and pileated woodpeckers. In Bristol, New Hampshire, Herb D’Arcy discovered a…

One January day, my husband and I set off on a walk around our neighborhood. The temperature was a bone-chilling negative 19 degrees, and although we worked to get our blood pumping, our fingers and…

J Cantrell is the Director of Finance and Operations for Northern Woodlands.  He has six years of nonprofit experience. You will most likely find him running and biking in the forest.  He…

We found what looked like tiny pumpkins balanced on 6-inch stems rising from the forest floor. What are these?

Jen Plowden grew up in the open spaces of western Maine, along its border with New Hampshire. She helped her father log with horses, explored the fields and forests with her siblings, and participated…

I saw a new bird at my feeder last winter. In mid-December, a small, reddish-brown bird with an upturned tail, a white eyebrow-stripe, and a long, slender, downcurved bill was on the deck below our…

Just east of Lake Ontario and west of the Adirondacks lies the Tug Hill Plateau, a chunk of sedimentary rock that rises from an elevation of 250 feet at its base near the lake to 2,100 feet on its…

Rising to an elevation of 6,288 feet, Mount Washington caps New Hampshire’s Presidential Range and is the highest peak in the Northeast. On a clear summer day, hordes of visitors flock to the…

Jays, chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, juncos, cardinals – these are the staple birds of winter, familiar to nearly all feeder watchers in the Northeast. In some years, nomadic finches such as…

Sometime between the last half of January and the first part of February, black bears give birth to between one and five (usually two) tiny, blind, almost hairless cubs. Measuring about 9 inches long…

Back in the 1980s, I began a long-term project with New England cottontails to explore the causes of their regional decline and how that situation could be reversed. I found that cottontails were…

In 1974, Cliff Allard opened Allard Lumber Company, a hardwood sawmill, on the site of his family’s former dairy farm in Brattleboro, Vermont. The outfit was a simple, four-man operation with a…