Between 60 and 80 percent of plants growing in the Northeast, including many of our food crops, need pollinators to reproduce. While many people associate pollinator habitat with wildflower…
Magazine Series
Safe Passage for Salamanders
Every year, on the first warm, rainy nights of spring, thousands of spotted salamanders, wood frogs, spring peepers, and other amphibians migrate en masse to their breeding wetlands in a…
Art Review: Sally Jacobson
Cyanotypes are among the oldest photographic printing processes. In 1842, English chemist, astronomer, and experimental photographer Sir John Herschel invented this technique as a way to copy…
Small-scale Scarification for Forest Regeneration
Forestry often involves the blending of technical solutions with ecological knowledge. Such is the case with scarification of the forest floor, which is typically done in conjunction with a…
Equinox
On a mild day the earth drinks its tea and then begins to sing again even the trees pause to notice, the air is a velvet coat that everyone wants to wear the sky becomes a stair down which…
The Mystery and Marvel of Nocturnal Migration
The migration of birds ranks among our planet’s most conspicuous, awe-inspiring natural phenomena. From nearly every corner of the globe, birds as diverse as hummingbirds and herons,…
Reunion
Every year just after Memorial Day, when the blackflies are at their cruelest, I take a Maine fishing trip with my brother Jake, his twin daughters, my two sons, and one of my daughters.…
Spotting Lady Beetles for Science
During our first autumn in Westford, Vermont, a wave of ladybugs attempted to make our home theirs for the winter. My wife expressed concern that our toddler might eat one. I replied,…
Orpine: Ornamental Gone Wild
My mother is a master gardener. In the spring, her beds are an explosion of showy blossoms, and in August, her gardens overflow with vegetables. Although we share a lifelong love of plants,…
Strengthening the Field: How Women are Making Strides in the Forestry Profession
Elisa Schine, a graduate student in forestry at the University of Maine, is accustomed to being in predominantly male academic and professional settings. Although forestry has become much more…