Discover More from This Category: The Outside Story

The great duckweed migration

May 19, 2017
By Declan McCabe The word “migration” conjures images of vast wildebeest or pronghorn herds crossing plains in unison, or hummingbirds traversing the Gulf of Mexico. When charismatic birds leave our New England forests, migration is typically the explanation. But how can a group of plants disappear, without discarding leaves, stems, or other evidence of their…

A precious stone with wings

May 11, 2017
By Carolyn Lorié One day last spring, I pulled into a parking lot in Thetford and saw a flash of brilliant red. Instantly, I knew it was a male scarlet tanager. He was perched in a cluster of bushes and everything around him — the fresh spring leaves, a nearby robin, the recently revived grass…

Wild leeks

May 3, 2017
By Virginia Barlow The white bulbs of wild leeks, also called ramps (especially in the South), can be eaten year round, but it’s the early leaves that are most appreciated. In pre-freezer days, ramps were the first greens available after five or so months of potatoes, and they were considered important as well as tasting…

High water and hidden possibility on the soggy edge of spring

April 26, 2017
By Dan Lambert The word has fallen out of use since the late 1800s, but you might hear its echo this time of year wherever streams carve channels through the land. Listen for the sound of water rushing over rocks and bursting into spray at the crest of a wave. The word is “freshet.” This…

Drumroll, please

April 19, 2017
By Bryan Pfeiffer Trees speak many languages, their leaves whooshing in summer and trunks creaking in winter. At the onset of spring, trees become sounding boards for courtship. Before the thrushes and warblers and sparrows arrive to sing from branches and boughs, woodpeckers kick off the spring chorus with a drumroll. Although woodpeckers certainly vocalize,…

Return of the missing lynx

April 12, 2017
By Susan Shea In the northern forest of New England, a big gray cat crouches silently in a dense thicket of fir along a snowshoe hare run. Its pointed ears, topped with long tufts of black hair, twitch as it listens intently. The cat’s face is framed by a fur ruff and its yellow-green eyes…

Woodcock habitat: a combo of open and hidden spaces

April 5, 2017
By Elise Tillinghast Every year around this time, my husband, kids and I haul out the tent blind from our garage and set it up in the field in front of our house. We toss in a few folding chairs, a thermos, maybe a neighbor. At dusk, we take our seats. First come the vocalizations…

Time travel in a peat bog

March 29, 2017
By Declan McCabe Gutter pipes full of soggy peat show up on the bench by my office each March. This means one thing: my colleague Peter Hope’s Saint Michael’s College students are about to experience time travel. You might reasonably ask how pipes filled with peat could possibly relate to time travel. What? No DeLorean,…

“Beaver duck”: the adaptable hooded merganser

March 22, 2017
By Michael J. Caduto Imagine ten nearly round white eggs snug in a hollow tree, lined with soft feathers plucked from the mother’s breast. The hen carefully tends the 2-inch eggs for about a month until the chicks hatch. Prompted by their mother’s call, downy day-old chicks clamber up to the opening in the tree…

Foxes are active in late winter across Vermont and New Hampshire

March 8, 2017
By Meghan McCarthy McPhaul The first time I saw the fox last February, I did a double take. It was late morning when I glanced out the window on my way from one task to the next. The unexpected flash of red made me stop and forget about the morning’s to-do list. I watched for…

Winter bird rehabilitation faces extra challenges

March 1, 2017
By Leah Burdick An injured barred owl sat in the back seat of a four-door sedan, staring balefully out the window at its rescuer. “I saw him on the side of the road, just sitting there, trying to fly,” the young woman explained to Maria Colby, director of Wings of the Dawn Wildlife Rehabilitation and…

Snow buntings: nomads from the north

February 22, 2017
By Susan Shea Driving to town on a winter day, I occasionally see flocks of white birds where the wind sweeps across fields, blowing snow across the road and exposing the grass. Rising and falling, the birds look like giant snowflakes tossed about by a storm. A closer look reveals that these birds, though mostly…

The curious case of the “cute face” crane fly

February 15, 2017
By Declan McCabe An email chirped in my inbox, “Check out the cute face on this insect we found.” I opened the attachment (yes, from a reliable source). My colleague Professor Peter Hope had taken a spectacular photograph through his microscope. The larva in question had fallen into a pit trap set by our first-year…

All about antlers

February 8, 2017
By Meghan McCarthy McPhaul A few autumns ago, one of the frequent visitors to our gone-wild apple orchard was a lopsided, one-point buck. We often see does and young, antlerless deer in the field, and by the end of each fall we’re able to identify many of them by size, appearance, and the company they…

Bark in winter

February 4, 2017
By Joe Rankin It’s winter. Hardwood trees are bare. But that doesn’t mean the woods are bereft of interest. Winter, when sunlight slants in, is the time when bark comes into its own. Pause to take in the aged-brass bark of a yellow birch, or the hand-sized bark plates on a big white pine. Bark…