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 growth and maturation to life for generations of readers. I can’t say, however, that I…

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 back and two yellow stripes along its sides identified it as a garter snake, our…

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 had to institute a lottery system for viewing them. An entire recreation industry has grown…

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 down by a mussel clamped firmly onto its beak. They were locked in an embrace…

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 closer. I watched as the butterfly unfurled its proboscis, a tube that functions like a…

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 was also memorable, a loud ​kwirr ​that sounded nothing like the other birds in my…

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 clung to the still-bare branches of red maple trees and fat black buds encircled the…

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 its common name because some species will lick sweat from human skin. Sweat bees are…

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 got a closer look – slender tail revealed this swimmer as a muskrat. It went…

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 screamed, dropped his net, and leaped from the stream to avoid a particularly large specimen.…

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 of hot air and then streaming southward. It is enough to take your breath away…

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 a sledge drawn by oxen. The stranger called him over and asked, “Where did all…

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 gray pouch. My teacher helped me identify it as a Baltimore oriole’s nest. Over the…

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 four pairs. What do they do with so many eyes? Well, it depends on the…

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 to catch a glimpse of Condylura cristata, the star-nosed mole, ever since I learned about…