The Outside Story

By Rachel Sargent Mirus Last July, I crossed paths with an insect that looked like the living embodiment of my favorite drawing game. Using folded paper, players add to a communal image without seeing previous contributions, such that the finished work is a surprise to everyone: the head of an eagle, on the body of…

By Michael J. Caduto July 2023 was the hottest month ever recorded worldwide, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Rising temperatures associated with climate change have dramatically increased atmospheric moisture, causing more frequent and severe storms. During the Great Vermont Flood of July 10-11, 2023, at peak flow more than 4 billion gallons…

In “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll, Alice stumbles upon a large mushroom. She peeps over the edge and encounters a caterpillar “smoking a long hookah, and taking not the slightest notice of her or anything else.” If Alice had touched the creature, she might have been in for an even bigger shock—forked horns,…

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,…

By Emily Haynes A few ledges along the Connecticut River are home to a rare plant commonly known as Jesup’s milk-vetch (Astragalus robbinsii var. jesupii). In fact, this species, which has been listed as federally endangered since 1987, only grows at six sites along a 16-mile stretch of the river in New Hampshire and Vermont. But…

Each spring, cities from New York to Texas celebrate the spectacular blooming of ornamental cherry trees. In many cultures, the lovely, delicate pink and white cherry blossoms symbolize rebirth and renewal, as well as the fleeting nature of life. Beyond these showy cultivated trees, our region boasts three native cherry species, which are important in…

Years ago, a hitchhiker found a baby red squirrel beneath a tree and brought it to the nature center where I worked as a naturalist and wildlife rehabilitator. The squirrel kit had not yet opened its eyes, so we estimated it was only 3 weeks old.  Most squirrels are born in the spring, but this…

The shift begins around the time we turn the clocks ahead, a gradual transition from winter’s steady chorus of chickadees, squawking jays, and crows cawing over the compost pile to — well, more.  On an afternoon walk along back roads, I’ll hear an avian uprising and look up to find a large flock of red-winged…

By Barry J. Wicklow For nearly 15 years, I have been exploring the headwaters of a river near my home. The entire drainage area, encompassing all the streams, rainfall, and snowmelt that pass into a single river, is called a watershed. Within each watershed, a system of rivers and streams forms a network, in which…

If you take to the water this spring, there’s a good chance you’ll spot a great blue heron, New England’s most recognizable large wading bird. But you might also see one of several other similar species that breed in or pass through our region’s wetlands. Telling these large waders apart can be tricky. What distinguishes…

The Outside Story By Decan McCabe The sharpest contrast between rivers and lakes is in water movement. While rivers flow inexorably downhill, lake water movement is more subtle. Anyone who has weathered a storm on a lake, however, can attest that less consistent water movement does not mean no water movement at all. In fact,…

Frogs have hopped about Earth since before the time of the dinosaurs, and it shows. Celebrated for their amphibious lifestyle and cacophonous choruses, the long arc of frog evolution has yielded other awesome and efficient adaptations in organs from their lungs to their skin. Research on green tree frogs demonstrates that frog lungs also assist…

  By Jackie Bussjaeger In the wild, finding a suitable mate is no simple matter — and it’s an extra complicated affair for one familiar resident of the woods and underbrush. With its chunky build, boldly striped head, and namesake white throat, the white-throated sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) is among the most common and recognizable birds…

Boiling maple sap into syrup is a time honored tradition in the Northeast, to the olfactory delight of anyone who has spent time in a steamy sugarhouse while inhaling the sweet maple scent of the season. It used to be that trees were tapped in late March, and evaporators in sugar houses fired up in…

There’s a new invasive insect zigzagging its way across North America. First reported by citizen scientists in Quebec in 2020, the elm zigzag sawfly (Aproceros leucopoda) has now spread to North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont. This new pest, which is native to Asia, has the potential to cause major…