This Week in the Woods

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…

This week in the woods, we were surprised to find American goldfinches feeding on something – we’re not sure what – among the dead leaves that had accumulated on top of a…

Young striped skunks such as this little one — photographed by a remote wildlife camera near a barn this week — disperse from their families in autumn. Skunks tend to be solitary,…

This week in the woods, we found a young spring peeper – perhaps two centimeters wide – crossing a trail by a wetlands. If you’re out at twilight, you may hear peepers now,…

This week in the woods, we had the privilege of participating in a guided walk hosted by Northern Woodlands and led by mushroom expert and author extraordinaire, Meg Madden. One of the many…

The early fall temperatures, migrating birds, and abundant displays of colorful fungi and berries make this week an especially nice one to be out in the woods. Tig Tillinghast photographed…

This week, we found a migratory flock of Nashville warblers, notable for their bright white eye rings, hunting insects in a hedgerow along a waterway. Despite their name, these warblers are…

This past weekend, we were lucky enough to be standing in the middle of a field when a migratory flock of twelve common nighthawks came flying down the Ompompanoosuc River Valley. Nighthawks…

This week in the woods, we found an especially pretty cluster of violet toothed polypore. This is a common bracket fungus distinguished by its purple edging and purple, porous underside…

This young Virginia opossum was skulking around the bushes near a house at night, as opossums often do. Despite sometimes being mistaken for large rats, they aren’t closely related to…

By early August, many birds have completed their parenting duties, and many migratory species will soon be heading south. However, second-brooding birds, such as house wrens, may still in the…