By Todd McLeish In 2006, I joined a team of biologists to trap bats in Vermont’s Chittenden County. We were searching for North America’s rarest bat, the Indiana bat, which had recently been discovered breeding in a forest in Middlebury. […]
Tag: the outside story
The Outside Story
Snakes and toads provide garden pest control
By Michael J. Caduto Encountering a snake in the garden causes many people to shriek or even panic. Yet snakes and another often unloved creature, the American toad, are among the most effective forms of pest control. If you tolerate […]
The Outside Story
The Outside Story: Nature’s supermarket
By Tiffany Soukup This past winter I spent three months exploring East Africa, traveling through ten different countries and covering over 8,077 miles. I was continuously impressed with how much local guides knew about their surroundings, in particular the human […]
The Outside Story
The Outside Story
Bobcats, the “phantoms of the forest” By Meghan McCarthy McPhaul The distinctively feline tracks through the snow in our woods last winter intrigued me. They would follow the narrow ski trail a ways, then meander into the trees or, sometimes, […]
The Outside Story
The Outside Story: Keeping it clean downstream
By Declan McCabe In peaceful streams, aquatic macroinvertebrates such as crayfish, stoneflies, and caddisflies travel over and under submerged rocks, foraging for other invertebrates, leaves, and algae. When rain falls, their world turns upside down. At first only the […]
The Outside Story
The Outside Story: Spider silk
By Rachel Sargent There is an all-natural material, produced at room temperature, that can be used to build homes, to make protective coverings, to hunt and trap, and even to swing through the air. It’s hypoallergenic, antimicrobial, and waterproof. On […]
The Outside Story
The Outside Story: Elms on the rebound?
By Carolyn Lorié On a recent damp May morning I walked around Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., with arborist Brian Beaty. While he is responsible for all of the trees in the center of the campus, our visit focused on […]
The Outside Story
The Outside Story: Eat your weedies
By Michael J. Caduto In the early 1960s, Euell Gibbons wrote “Stalking the Wild Asparagus” and introduced millions of North Americans to the virtues of harvesting wild foods. Since that time, gathering wild edibles has become increasingly popular, and in […]
The Outside Story
The Outside Story
Alder and Willow Flycatchers: sibling species By Steven D. Faccio By mid-May each year I begin to look forward to the return of the alder flycatchers that nest in the willows along the stream near our house. Usually the last […]