This Week in the Woods

This Week in the Woods we discovered a black bear dozing on a rock at the edge of a field. He (or she?) seemed unimpressed by the humans passing at a distance, and after a brief…

This Week in the Woods we discovered blue flag irises blooming by a forested pond, attended by a number of small butterflies. As Laurie Morrisey notes in this recent Outside Story essay, blue…

This Week in the Woods, we visited our favorite pink lady’s slipper patch and discovered a couple of beautiful beetles crawling on the blossoms. Analeptura lineola, sometimes called the…

This Week in the Woods, Assistant Editor Meghan McCarthy McPhaul discovered a patch of little bluets. Also called known as Quaker ladies, these exquisite little flowers typically grow in…

This Week in the Woods, the small but spectacular spring wildflower fringed polygala (also called fringed milkwort and gaywings) is in bloom. This little evergreen reproduces both by…

This Week in the Woods, we spied this male blackburnian warbler hopping between branches in a hemlock tree and running his bill along the flat needles (no doubt to glean insects). Despite…

This Week in the Woods more warblers are returning, including this black-and-white warbler, which obligingly posed for a photo behind the Northern Woodlands office. Black-and-white warblers…

This Week in the Woods, we’ve seen several pumpkin orange-colored anglewing (Polygonia) butterflies. After some expert input, we’re reasonably confident that the butterfly in the…

This Week in the Woods, this handsome raccoon passed our remote camera. It was likely heading to a nearby vernal pool for a frog feast; this time of year, we often find raccoon tracks in the…

This Week in the Woods, some red fox kits are venturing out of the den. As Meghan McCarthy McPhaul notes in this Outside Story essay, fox breeding pairs “generally stay together after…

This Week in the Woods, we are happy to see that common loons are returning from their coastal winter habitat. At the time the photo was taken, the loon had just resurfaced from under the lake…

This Week in the Woods, sugar maple buds are starting to open in the Upper Valley – a sure sign that sugaring season is coming to an end. Here’s an Outside Story essay by Audrey…

This Week in the Woods, lakes and rivers have opened up again, and hooded mergansers are back. As Michael Caduto notes in this Outside Story essay, hoodies are short-distance migrants and…

This Week in the Woods, the great spring melt is progressing rapidly. Even on shady, north-facing slopes, you can now see thaw circles – rings of bare ground around the trunks of trees,…

This Week in the Woods, the snow’s melting and the March winds roar. Spring is on its way. Out in the wetlands, pussy willow catkins are emerging from their buds. As noted in this…

This Week in the Woods, we’re seeing more dripping icicles and openings in frozen streams and rivers. The spring melt has begun. This seasonal change has profound impacts on aquatic…

This Week in the Woods, we found this chipmunk peeking out of its winter burrow. There were no dignitaries in top hats to greet him, but the chippie did seem to inspect his shadow before…

This Week in the Woods, we’ve been grateful for snowshoes with metal teeth. The walking conditions out there are difficult! Editor Cheryl Daigle discovered this perfectly shaped capsule…

This Week in the Woods, Northern Woodland’s assistant editor Meghan McCarthy McPhaul was “just skiing through the woods, lost in my thoughts, when a grouse burst out of the snow…

This Week in the Woods we watched a nuthatch seem to defy gravity while gleaning bugs upside-down, on the underside of an almost-horizontal branch, and it occurred to us that strong claws and…