By Madeline Bodin Scenes from the West’s five-year drought are striking – the cracked mud at the bottom of a dry reservoir, forests in flames. Wonder what a drought would look like in Vermont and New Hampshire? Look out the […]
Tag: the outside story
Column, The Outside Story
An abundance of caution: wild food and risk
By Benjamin Lord “I’ve got a botanical question for you,” my friend said as he came into my classroom the other day. “Is black nightshade edible?” He’d found some growing near his chicken coop. “I took the tiniest bite,” he […]
Column, The Outside Story
Tobacco Hornworms: big, green, and in the garden
By Todd McLeish The big, meaty green caterpillars that many of us have been fighting to eradicate from our gardens this summer make plenty of people squirm. In part it’s because they are among the largest caterpillars in the region, […]
Column, The Outside Story
Cloudy with a chance of flies: non-biting midges
By Declan McCabe Clouds of tiny insects, rising and falling hypnotically along lake shores, contribute to the ambiance of warm summer evenings. My recent bike ride was interrupted by a lungful of this ambiance. If you find yourself in a […]
Column, The Outside Story
The dirt on roots
By Joe Rankin You can pretty much count on a tree to stay in one place, at least in the real world. Not so in fiction. Remember the walking, talking Ents in the Lord of the Rings movies? Or Groot, […]
Column, The Outside Story
Singing a different tune
By Laurie Morrissey Birdsong has always fascinated humans. Besides waking some of us up a wee bit too early in the morning, it has inspired musical compositions and immortal poetry. It has produced lush descriptions, like those of the early […]
Column, The Outside Story
Good news for wild bees?
By Joe Rankin The honey bee is an introduced species in North America. It’s only been here about 400 years, brought by English colonists who found none after stumbling ashore and then promptly put in an order with their backers […]
The Outside Story
The Outside Story; How do cowbirds learn to be cowbirds?
By Carolyn Lorié Unlike the majority of birds, brown-headed cowbirds (Molothrus ater) do not start life surrounded by their own kind. The females do not build nests, but instead add their eggs to the clutches of other birds—usually one per […]
The Outside Story
The Outside Story: Karner blues make a comeback
By Meghan McCarthy McPhaul The Karner blue, New Hampshire’s state butterfly, is a wisp of a thing, a tiny fluttering of silvery-blue wings. Unless you happen to be wandering through a pine barren or black-oak savannah, however, you’re unlikely […]
The Outside Story
The Outside Story: Jack-in-the-pulpits
Jack-in-the-pulpit–or is that Jill? By Meghan McCarthy McPhaul Jack-in-the-pulpits (Arisaema triphyllum) are not the most colorful spring flowers, but what they lack in beauty they make up for in interesting characteristics. These easily-identified plants are full of surprises, from their […]