Two chipmunks vie for seeds on our front lawn. One lives directly underneath the bird feeder. Another hails from the far side of the house, address unknown. The chipmunks appear identical to me: same size, same stripes. Same interests, namely seed hoarding, aggressive chittering, jumping into the bushes and back out again, and brazen stiff-tailed…

By Olivia Box I’ve always found slender, sharp, yellow-ochre beech leaves alluring, and it’s endearing how they cling onto saplings late into the fall. However, Fagus grandifolia, the American beech, tends to get a lot of flak from foresters. The trees are plagued with beech bark disease, which ruins any timber value, and they can…

by Susie Spikol Tucked behind a stonewall on the edge of a hardwood forest, my 6-year-old students and I spy on an Eastern gray squirrel as it climbs out of a tree cavity and scurries down to the ground. There is a dusting of snow. My students, bundled in vibrant snowsuits, are the only flash…

by Susan Shea Black-capped chickadees are one of the most frequent visitors to our bird feeders in winter, but do we really know them? This common bird exhibits some remarkable behaviors and winter survival strategies. Undoubtedly you’ve heard the familiar “chicka-dee-dee-dee” call in the winter woods. Soon after spotting the caller, with its black cap…

By Sandra Mitchell Walking through the woods on a crisp December day, I spotted a flash of green amongst the rocks, snaking up through the snow. Greenery in a forest full of gray and white is a treat, and so I stooped to study the fern frond that was firmly attached to a rock. In…

By Dave Mance III The blast of a gunshot: a deep bass roar she feels in her chest, followed by a treble ringing in her ears. The buck drops. The hunter remains in her crouch, watching the animal’s last breaths through her scope. When he is still she rises, trembling from the cold and the…

British soldier lichens are among the first wild things I remember being able to identify as a child. I loved spotting this lichen during forays into the woods – on a giant boulder or atop a decaying stump – its tiny, bright red caps seemed whimsical and somehow happy. I still love to find British…

The Outside Story by Susie Spikol I fall in love easy. I’ve been mad about river otters and star-nosed moles, and of course the venomous short-tailed shrew. But my first love was a creature that is almost mythical, a shadow lingering on the edges of time. There wasn’t much of it, merely bones, teeth, scraps…

The Outside Story by Meghan Mccarthy McPhaul Woolly bear caterpillars seem to be everywhere these days – creeping across the lawn, along the road when I’m walking the dog, hidden in the wilted cut-back of the perennial garden. Last week I found a woolly bear curled up in a shoe I’d left on the front…

By Dave Mance III Act One opens in a forest on the western slopes of the Taconic Mountains in southwestern Vermont. A man in his 40’s is walking with his former high-school geology teacher – a man now in his 70’s. Amid the towering trees, they come across a VW bus-sized boulder, sitting alone and…

By Meghan McCarthy McPhaul A few winters back, a doe  frequented our compost heap. The garden fence around it proved an inadequate barrier, as she simply hopped over it to nosh on the rotting shards of jack-o-lanterns and the latest veggie scraps tossed atop the pile. Not far from the garden sits an old orchard,…

By Susan Shea On winter mornings when I look out my window, I often see a gray squirrel clinging upside down to the post supporting my bird feeder, with his front paws in the tray, munching sunflower seeds. Sometimes, a much smaller red squirrel is perched on the opposite side of the feeder. This brings…

By Meghan McCarthy McPhaul Had a unicorn pranced across the trail in front of me, I wouldn’t have been surprised. It was one of those sparkly winter days, when snow drapes fir trees and glints across the landscape. I was at the top of Cannon Mountain in New Hampshire’s Franconia Notch, and an undercast made…

By Declan McCabe Come mid-January, when I’m acclimatized to Vermont’s winter, I enjoy an occasional stroll on the icy surface of Lake Champlain. I favor bays sheltered from the brunt of winter winds where the ice has had ample time to thicken. I pull microspikes on over my boots and off I go. There’s room…

By Meghan McCarthy McPhaul The other day I was driving through New Hampshire’s Crawford Notch, where my eyes are usually drawn to the tall mountains and long, cascading waterfalls on either side of the road. But on this day my gaze shifted toward the snow banks lining the narrow highway. The sun was shining and…