This Week in the Woods

This week in the woods, we persuaded two eye-rolling teenagers to accompany us out to a roadside swamp, where we gave them a long lecture on the wonders of skunk cabbages. The rosy spathes of…

This week in the woods, if all this mud and snow has you feeling a bit desperate to see flowering plants, consider cutting some red maple stems and putting them in a jar of water on a window…

This Week in the Woods, we were delighted to see this eastern bluebird pair, a few yards away from an available bird house. Bluebirds are partial migrants, and during a mild winter season,…

This week in the woods, we discovered this pileated woodpecker excavation in a dead tree, with wood chips and dislodged tinder polypore conks scattered around the tree’s base. If you…

This Week in the Woods, we finally climbed up a steep hillside to collect photos from a game camera near a log, where different species urinate, rub scent glands, and otherwise leave their…

This week in the woods, we took a walk along the Ompompanoosuc River, where this winter’s ongoing temperature swings have created debris fields of ice shards. These start during a thaw…

This week in the woods, we discovered this barred owl napping below the eaves of a barn. We took these images from approximately 20 yards away, using a zoom lens, to avoid disturbing the…

This week in the woods, we found occasional mixed winter flocks of titmice, chickadees, and nuthatches, as well as this male hairy woodpecker, which was busily harvesting soft-bodied…

This Week in the Woods, we spotted a red crossbill, shown here in silhouette far, far away on the top of a tree, where he’d been calling incessantly. In the silhouette, you can easily…

This week in the woods, the arrival of snow means a shift in wildlife activity, and also the greater visibility of some more subtle sights as they become more obvious against a stark white…

This week in the woods, for our last post of 2023, we’re celebrating one of our most common and beautiful bird species: the blue jay. These brazen, intelligent birds – members of…

This week in the woods, we found a flock of house finches in a thicket, and this male bird was obliging enough to hop up on a perch and show off his rosy red plumage. Although nowadays house…

This week in the woods, we encountered what looked like a patch of miniature Christmas wreaths on the forest floor. Thanks to identification help from the Upper Valley Land Trust’s Jason…

This week in the woods, cold and slushy “duck weather” defeated our best intentions, and we spent most of the past two days hiding inside with hot chocolate and slippers. We were…

This week in the woods, wet ground and cold weather have set up good conditions for needle ice, and you can find it “sprouting” along muddy trails. As Rachel Sargent Mirus explains…

This week in the woods, we went seeking color in the mostly-dreary stick season landscape and found this patch of Bisporella. These tiny, bright yellow fungi grow on decaying stumps and logs…

This week in the woods, we’re sharing images that we took November 15, 2022, of a parasitic drumstick truffleclub fungus growing out of its host, a truffle (also often called a false…

This week in the woods, we discovered (via a remote camera trap) a Virginia opossum trundling back and forth from a derelict shed. On each return trip, it was carrying leaves with its tail.…

This week in the woods, we discovered a gooey mess, and also an excuse to use the word deliquescence. The word, as applied to fungi, describes a process of self-destruction in which a mushroom…

This week in the woods, we stumbled into a group of about ten oil beetles (Meleo genus) that had probably come together to mate. These iridescent beetles with undersized, ant-like heads, live…