Most winters, a few sparrows visit my yard, feeding on the seeds I scatter on the ground near my bird feeder. These particular sparrows have long tails, rusty crowns and eye-lines on their gray heads, and a distinctive dark breast […]
Category: The Outside Story
The Outside Story: Thundersnow: A rare type of winter storm
By Colby Galliher It’s deep in winter, and a nor’easter is dumping snow outside. In between the howling winds you hear a boom! Maybe a heap of snow fell from the roof, you think, or a giant icicle crashed from […]
The Outside Story: Six-legged creatures of the winter stream
One winter day, while teaching a winter ecology class, I pulled on waders and rubber gloves, grabbed a catch net, and led my “Minibeasts of the Stream” program, discovering a rich variety of insects in the frigid waters of Kedron […]
The Outside Story: How trees prepare for winter
By Rebecca Perkins Hanissiant Of all life’s synergies, I appreciate most the one between my propensity for domestic procrastination and my love of moving through the outdoors — countless adventures are born of it. During a late November weekend, when […]
The Outside Story: Otters among us
In winter, river otters head upstream into the uplands, seeking areas of fast-moving water that remain open—at least open enough for an otter to slip into a stream in pursuit of fish. You might catch a brief glimpse of […]
The Outside Story: Looking up for the Geminid meteor shower
I’ve always loved the idea of watching the sky for shooting stars. But I’m much more likely to be up to watch the sunrise than I am to stay awake past midnight, when most meteor showers happen. […]
The Outside Story: Canada Yew: A native evergreen
By Susan Shea For thousands of years, people have decorated their homes with evergreen boughs, a symbol of eternal life, during the darkest time of the year — around the winter-solstice and Christmas. In addition to common species […]
The Outside Story: Pine siskins erupting
If you are prone to looking up as you walk (or pedal or drive) among trees, you may have noticed a bumper crop of cones clinging to the highest branches of white pine trees this summer and fall. Around my […]
The Outside Story: Muscling through migration
During the autumn months, many birds migrate from their summer breeding grounds in the Northeast to warmer wintering areas south of our region. Migratory birds include many species of raptors and waterfowl, which we often notice because of the […]
The Outside Story: Buckthorn: A tenacious invasive
Of all the non-native, invasive plants in the Northeast, buckthorn is among the most hated by forest stewards. There are two types of invasive buckthorn in our region: glossy buckthorn (Frangula alnus) and common buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica), also called […]