It’s late afternoon, and fine snow is sifting down into Joan and Bill Hildreth’s woods in Montgomery, Vermont. Their property lies within a large expanse of forest on the edge of…

“They had to leave the hollies,” Brian Tefft said, pointing across an opening studded with snow-touched slash to a pair of green-bowered bluebirds. “That was one…

It is difficult to describe the Theology of Birds to which I am devoted, except to compare it to what Emerson said of his own spiritual condition: “It is always fully felt but ever only…

In the frosty, pre-dawn darkness, three friends and I pulled off on a lonely stretch of road in Windham County, Vermont. The aging Subaru had bumped and heaved over the frozen ruts. We…

He stretched his massive neck, closed his eyes, and rubbed his forehead, eyes, and antlers back and forth across the spruce’s overhanging branch tips. Periodically, he would stop, open…

In 1694, with its whitetails already devastated by overhunting and habitat loss, the Massachusetts Bay Colony prohibited deer hunting for half the year. New Hampshire did the same in 1741.…

It’s a rite of fall: the splitting of logs for firewood. It’s arduous, but great exercise, to be sure. It’s also a chance to see a host of fascinating creatures hidden deep…

On a steep slope in the woods above our house, one particular sugar maple stands out for both its great size and its longevity. Some of the lichen-covered bark is sloughing off its trunk, but…

Things were simpler when we were kids, right? Culture certainly was, before 457 channels and the internet and smart phones. Probably global politics were, too. The Cold War – Rocky vs.…

If you’ve ever tried to grow a tree from a single seed, and failed, you’ll probably want to know how the New Hampshire State Forest Nursery manages to grow about a quarter of a…