By Rachel Mirus The September before my daughter was born, my husband and I went for our last pre-baby hike around Camel’s Hump. We stopped for a snack on the ridgeline, and as we sat munching granola bars we were […]
Category: The Outside Story
Column, The Outside Story
Brainwashed by worms
By Declan McCabe Some of my favorite children’s books describe life cycles as heroic tales of persistence and redemption. From “The Ugly Duckling” to “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” to “A Seed is Sleeping,” these stories have brought the miracles of […]
Column, The Outside Story
Garter snakes can be surprise guests
By Susan Shea One summer day I lifted the black plastic top of our composter and jumped back, startled – a large snake was curled up on top of the compost. The yellow stripe down the center of its dark […]
Column, The Outside Story
Amphibians Aglow
By Brett Amy Thelen The living light of bioluminescent organisms like fireflies, anglerfish, and marine plankton is legendary. The dazzling light shows put on by synchronous fireflies in Great Smoky Mountains National Park are so popular that park managers have […]
Column, The Outside Story
The kingfisher and the mussel
Last July, Rich Kelley posted a most unusual photograph to the Vermont Birding Facebook group with the caption, “Someone bit off more than he could chew.” The photo, taken in the Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge, showed a belted kingfisher weighted […]
Column, The Outside Story
Butterflies sip sweet nectar
By Susan Shea Recently I saw a beautiful orange butterfly speckled with black – a great spangled fritillary –feeding on orange hawkweed in a meadow. I observed it through binoculars, so as not to scare it off, then slowly crept […]
Column, The Outside Story
Red-bellied woodpeckers move north
By Lee Emmons I first became acquainted with my neighborhood red-bellied woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) when it visited my bird feeders last winter. Sporting a black-and-white-striped back with a red nape, this medium-sized woodpecker certainly made a visual impression. Its call […]
Column, The Outside Story
Exploring a swamp
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 […]
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 […]