This Week in the Woods

This week in the woods, adult loons have begun their pre-migration partial molt. If you look closely at this adult bird, photographed from a respectful zoom lens distance in Strafford,…

This week in the woods, we’ve noticed a lot of aerial feeding activity above fields and wetlands along the Connecticut and Ompompanoosuc rivers, all sites within about 20 miles of the…

This week in the woods, common nighthawks are migrating down the Connecticut River corridor, and if you look up at twilight, you may catch a glimpse of them performing acrobatic dives and…

This Week in the Woods, Associate Editor Meghan McCarthy McPhaul discovered this snake skin in a woodpile. Snakes typically shed their skins several times a year, depending on such factors as…

This week in the woods, we observed an American robin chick making its first wobbly flight from the nest, which started off well but ended with a crash landing on the lawn. (The young bird was…

This Week in the Woods, as we move into late summer, there’s a lot less singing in the woods but we’re still hearing hermit thrushes, red-eyed vireos, and winter wrens. We’re…

This week in the woods, we’ve been seeing a lot of Monotropa in bloom – both ghost pipe and pinesap, shown here in the company of a bumble bee. Neither of these plants…

This week in the woods, we’ve been seeing northern pearly-eyes fluttering up from the ferns along long woods trails. These forest butterflies – beautifully marked with black spots…

This Week in the Woods, the American redstart chicks we featured last week have all successfully fledged. Here’s the last fledgling to go, a few minutes before the young bird hopped out…

This week in the woods, we didn’t have to venture far for a great nature photography opportunity. We found an American redstart nest in a stand of yard lilacs and set up a remote (no…

This week in the woods, we’ve reached summer’s second act. Spring blooming plants are producing seeds and fruits, and suddenly, butterflies seem to be everywhere. Monarchs…

This week in the woods, the torrential rains over the past few days have been a hardship for nesting birds, threatening both ground nests and, to a lesser degree, nests in trees. We found…

This week in the woods, we found a family of fish crows rummaging in the vegetation along a river bank. Fish crows are slightly smaller than American crows but otherwise very difficult to…

This week in the woods, we enjoyed our office backyard “moth ball” with lepidopterist JoAnne Russo, who identified a whopping 86 different moth species flitting through the night…

This week in the woods, we discovered a wild turkey egg tucked within a decaying tree stump and partly covered with moss and wood. To figure out what had happened, we checked with Northern…

This Week in the Woods, there are several showy wildflowers coming in bloom, including lady’s slippers, columbine, rhodora, and painted trillium. Meghan McCarthy McPhaul took this…

This Week in the Woods, we’re continuing last week’s theme of high bird drama with two images (courtesy of Tig Tillinghast) of a male red-winged blackbird attacking a crow. Moments…

This week in the woods, the summer canopy is rapidly closing, which means that the window of opportunity to easily observe summer forest birds is closing, too. Scarlet tanagers are especially…

This Week in the Woods, bald eagle chicks are growing quickly, and by this point, many have shed their white baby fuzz. The eaglet in this nest (photographed with a high magnification lens…

This Week in the Woods, hermit thrushes are back and flitting around in pairs, with stops along the way to rummage in leaf litter for tasty invertebrates. One of the key identifying traits of…