By Susan Shea There was a sucking sound as my rubber boot sank into the deep black muck. Naturalist Jon Binhammer and I were standing in the middle of a hardwood swamp in central Vermont. Above us, dainty red flowers […]
Category: The Outside Story
Column, The Outside Story
Sweat bees: diminutive and diverse
The Outside Story By Rachel Mirus As you swat away blackflies this summer, look closely; it may be that not all those flies are flies. Some of them might be tiny sweat bees, members of the Halictidae family, which gets […]
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Muskrats: swimming through summer
By Meghan McCarthy McPhaul We were touring the neighborhood backroads one summer evening when the kids noticed a sleek movement through a small pond. At first, we thought it was a beaver, but its smaller size and – once we […]
Column, The Outside Story
Fascinating fishing spiders
By Declan McCabe Large fishing spiders walking on water can be fascinating – or terrifyingly unnerving. The latter reaction is common among Saint Michael’s College students as we sample Vermont’s streams and ponds. On one occasion, a normally macho student […]
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Broad-winged hawks: secret nesters
By Susie Spikol Each fall, thousands of broad-winged hawks soar across the New England sky in flocks known as kettles, on their way to wintering grounds in South and Central America. The sky swirls with hawks bubbling up on thermals […]
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Of drumlins and erratics
By Michael J. Caduto There’s a story about an early tourist from New York City who stopped his horse and buggy to watch a farmer harvesting a spring crop of rocks from his land. The farmer was loading rocks onto […]
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The oriole nest
The Outside Story By Susan Shea I grew up on a street lined with tall, stately elms. While walking to school one day, I found a bird’s nest that the wind had blown down. The nest was a beautiful, silky […]
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Spider eyes are watching you
The Outside Story By Rachel Mirrus Many of us avoid close encounters of the eight-legged kind, but if you’ve ever come eye to eye with a spider, you’ve probably noticed they have several more eyes than we do: most have […]
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Star-nosed mole: a nose that knows
The Outside Story By Susie Spikol Some people have life birds, species of birds they’ve waited their whole lives to see in the wild. I don’t have one of these, but I do have a life mole. I’ve been waiting […]
Column, The Outside Story
Trillium: A beauty of the spring woods
By Laurie D. Morrissey Once, when I was little, I was so thrilled to come across a gorgeous, dark-red trillium that I picked it and placed it in a vase in the house. I was disappointed when it quickly wilted. […]