In one year, Steve Wheeler put 35,000 miles on his new Chevy pickup. You might think Wheeler has a punishing commute, or perhaps family members scattered across the country. But he racked up…
Magazine Series
Return of the Giants: Sturgeon Are Making a Comeback in the Northeast
For millennia, a group of prehistoric fishes have been swimming the rivers, lakes, and coastal waters of northeastern North America. These fish – some of them approaching a…
Art Review: Sherrie York
At first look, Sherrie York’s linocut Tern of the Tide is reminiscent of Katsushika Hokusai’s iconic woodcut print The Great Wave (c. 1830). But unlike Hokusai’s piece, York…
Quaking Aspen
All spring the tree frogs peeped in the dark, except those seeming lost in the grass by the wooden steps, their bodies like paper. I would let the dog out the back door at night and walk alone…
Mud Dauber Wasps
As I was prepping my fall invertebrate zoology course, a colleague mentioned that a local berry farmer had scraped mud dauber wasp nests off an outbuilding and suggested these would be of…
Black Raspberries: The Perfect Bramble
Black raspberries, along with raspberries and blackberries, are among the berries that grow on brambles in the Northeast. Also called blackcaps, black raspberries are the most shade tolerant…
Forest Succession
Every forest tells a story of disturbance. The trees growing today reflect past hurricanes, abandoned farm fields, insect outbreaks, timber harvests, and even retreating glaciers. Forest…
The Double-Bit Cruiser Axe
In case you missed the memo, the double-bit cruiser axe is back in vogue – and commanding respectable prices both from online vendors and at flea markets. So, just what is a…
The Snapping Turtle
When I was 10 years old, fishing an inlet off the river behind our family’s animal hospital, I caught a snapping turtle of considerable size. At that point in my angling life, I used a…
1,000 Words
Biologist Barry Wicklow spotted this gray treefrog (Dryophytes versicolor) nestled against the greenish foliose lichen (Parmelia sulcata) on a tree during an aquatic ecology study.…