Owning multiple chainsaws is a bit of an insurance policy. If a saw breaks, or gets pinched, having a backup saw (or two!) can keep you cutting. Last winter, I visited a friend who was frustrated by…

We know that tree rings can reveal the age of a tree, but how do these rings form? And what else can they tell us about the life of a tree? In temperate forests, with distinct growing and dormant…

Dozens of people are involved in creating each issue of Northern Woodlands. These are a few of the contributors to the Summer 2025 magazine. {image2} Brent Haglund, who photographed “The…

Certain clusters of technology have earned a place in our cultural imagination. Detroit is Motor City. There’s Silicon Valley just south of San Francisco Bay, Research Triangle in North…

Every so often, we commission an artist for a wildlife illustration for a Northern Woodlands sticker. We hand out these stickers at conferences and to office visitors, make them available in our…

Juneberry – also called serviceberry or shadbush – is an unassuming native fruit in the genus Amelanchier with many common names. Members of the genus grow throughout most of North America…

Like the fledgling heron in the image on the page opposite this column, two of my own children are preparing to leave the nest this summer. And like the gangly bird in the photograph, my human…

For 12 years, my family has spent a week on the same property in Downeast Maine. In mid-June, with summer draped lazily before us, we travel east along Route 1 and bear right after Bucksport. Time…

In much of the eastern United States, oaks are declining, while generalist species such as red maple (Acer rubrum) are on the rise in historically oak-dominated forests. This shift is in part…

Outside my window sits a grand old maple that I have grown to favor, not because it’s mine, but rather, I belong to it—despite our separate homes in nature. I see how it bears  …

“I have spent many seasons observing several great blue heron nests at this beaver pond in Amherst, New Hampshire. I look forward to these prehistoric-looking birds’ return yearly and…

Painted turtles (like all reptiles) are ectothermic, or cold-blooded, and basking in the sun helps them warm up. Also, leeches and algae that attach to them as they swim dry up and fall off, leaving…

Ruth Cutler’s property in Ashford, Connecticut, has been in the family for nearly 100 years. Her grandfather purchased the original 127 acres in 1927, and the family has called it “The…

In late June, the route to the 3,839-foot summit of Plateau Mountain remained closed following a late spring storm that dumped heavy snow and ice, leaving a trail of downed trees that devastated many…

A topiary garden. A dairy farm. A meandering river flanked by floodplain wetlands. Hundreds of thousands of acres of managed forest stitching together Maine’s North Woods. An iconic sledding…

Botanically curious people often ask me, “How do you tell a sedge from a grass?” Many have heard that “sedges have edges,” but distinguishing grasses from sedges is often more…

By mid-June, green covers the mountainside, paints it a thousand verdant shades, leaf upon leaf upon leaf. Mountain laurel blossoms. Blackcap raspberries ripen. Hidden in the dense woods, a…

This week in the woods, the starflower is the star. One of the most common spring bloomers in northeastern woodlands and tolerant of shade, the wildflower is blossoming all over the floors of our…

One of the most exciting rites of spring is the alewife run, an annual event where throngs of fish race upstream from the ocean to inland water bodies on a reproductive journey. These “river…

This week in the woods, a black-throated green warbler, a bird more often high up in the forest canopy, deigned to visit us in the understory for a moment and sing its fitting song: I’m so…