Standing on the berm of a small pond, I watch the resident beaver leave its lodge, a silhouetted nose moving through the water. It disappears briefly and returns with a branch in tow. The beaver clambers over the edge of its dam along a muddy path, a branch bouncing along behind. Despite the muddy trail,…

Several weeks and many baths ago, my dog discovered a black-and-white stranger crossing our lawn. Wagging vigorously and ignoring my frantic shouts, she ran up and offered her canine greeting: a nose-to-tail sniff. The encounter ended predictably, with the skunk waddling off into the dark, the dog staggering in circles, and me searching desperately through…

My friend Terry Gulick, who passed away earlier this year, used to tease me about my favorite yard tree. Terry did a lot of gardening jobs when he wasn’t mentoring kids, and he was amused and a little offended by what I’d allowed to grow up in my former vegetable patch. It was bad enough…

For 12 summers, my Vermont colleagues and I guided high school student and teacher teams researching streams as part of a National Science Foundation EPSCoR program. These teams received training in July and employed their new skills for the rest of the summer and early autumn by taking water samples and flow measurements and observing…

When I hug my son after a day of fall bouldering, his hair smells of the sun-warmed rock we’ve been climbing over. It’s a distinctive odor, evocative of gray ledges and golden light returning after rain, and yet it’s not the rock I’m smelling, but tell-tale traces of life. People have written about – and…

In cartoons, when a turtle is spooked, it retreats into and closes up its shell. While used for comic effect, this imagery is based in fact – although not all turtles are capable of this protective feat. In the Northeast, three native turtle species have hinged shells: the Blanding’s turtle (Emydoidea blandingii), the common musk…

‘Tis the season for spooky stories, and just in time for Halloween, the spider that news headlines have described as “giant,” “flying,” and “venomous” has made its way to New England. While it may be a nightmare for anyone with arachnophobia, the invasive Joro spider (Trichonephila clavata) is quite docile and, if given a choice,…

Wandering through the woods this time of year, occasionally I’ve come across a small deciduous tree laden with cone-like structures that resemble the hops used to brew beer. This is the American – or Eastern – hophornbeam (Ostrya virginiana). A member of the birch family, hophornbeam grows in the understory in a variety of northeastern…

When I worked at a barn one summer during college, I marveled at the swallows that nested in the structure’s eaves and corners. I watched the iridescent birds swoop, flutter, and dart with amazing dexterity between the small spaces above the stalls. These acrobatic birds are aerial insectivores, a group that also includes other swallows,…