Bright red, soft, and velvety … no, I’m not describing a Valentine’s Day decoration, but a red velvet mite. Built like eight-legged, scarlet Beanie Babies, red velvet mites are hard to miss, even though most of them are no bigger than an eighth of an inch long. They are arachnids in the family Tombidiidae, so…

You know Orion always comes up sideways. Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains, And rising on his  hands, he looks in on me… So wrote Robert Frost in his poem “The Star-splitter.” The aesthetic wonder of this easy-to-find constellation and its twinkling starlight have captured the imagination of countless stargazers. But the…

My yard is full of Eastern white pine trees, and every three years or so, it is full of pine cones. This is one of those years. Pine cones have fallen all over the yard, the sidewalk, the driveway. The neighborhood wildlife seem pleased by this bounty. A resident gray squirrel has made a fallen…

  In mid-winter 1988, I went contra-dancing at the Congregational Church in Lyme, New Hampshire. During intermission, I joined other dancers who stepped out of the overheated hall into a star-studded night alive with shimmering waves of color, from blue to pinkish-red. We stood in awe, while luminous curtains of light performed a pas-de-deux across…

 Most winters, a few sparrows visit my yard, feeding on the seeds I scatter on the ground near my bird feeder. These particular sparrows have long tails, rusty crowns and eye-lines on their gray heads, and a distinctive dark breast spot. Looking more closely, I’ve noticed buff-colored patches on the sides of their pale breasts,…

By Colby Galliher It’s deep in winter, and a nor’easter is dumping snow outside. In between the howling winds you hear a boom! Maybe a heap of snow fell from the roof, you think, or a giant icicle crashed from the eaves. A few minutes later, another boom pounds through the blizzard’s gales. It’s closer…

By Colby Galliher It’s deep in winter, and a nor’easter is dumping snow outside. In between the howling winds you hear a boom! Maybe a heap of snow fell from the roof, you think, or a giant icicle crashed from the eaves. A few minutes later, another boom pounds through the blizzard’s gales. It’s closer…

One winter day, while teaching a winter ecology class, I pulled on waders and rubber gloves, grabbed a catch net, and led my “Minibeasts of the Stream” program, discovering a rich variety of insects in the frigid waters of Kedron Brook in South Woodstock, Vermont. Insects are abundant in winter streams because they are able…

By Rebecca Perkins Hanissiant Of all life’s synergies, I appreciate most the one between my propensity for domestic procrastination and my love of moving through the outdoors — countless adventures are born of it. During a late November weekend, when faced with a day spent winterizing our home, my husband and I instead packed up…

  In winter, river otters head upstream into the uplands, seeking areas of fast-moving water that remain open—at least open enough for an otter to slip into a stream in pursuit of fish. You might catch a brief glimpse of an otter along one of these smaller streams, as I did years ago with my…

       I’ve always loved the idea of watching the sky for shooting stars. But I’m much more likely to be up to watch the sunrise than I am to stay awake past midnight, when most meteor showers happen. Lucky for me, the upcoming Geminid meteor shower will provide an opportunity to wish upon…

    By Susan Shea  For thousands of years, people have decorated their homes with evergreen boughs, a symbol of eternal life, during the darkest time of the year ­— around the winter-solstice and Christmas. In addition to common species such as spruce and fir, I’ve noticed another evergreen in my neighborhood: a low, sprawling…

 If you are prone to looking up as you walk (or pedal or drive) among trees, you may have noticed a bumper crop of cones clinging to the highest branches of white pine trees this summer and fall. Around my yard, the red squirrels have been busy gathering cones, chattering away as they scamper through…

  During the autumn months, many birds migrate from their summer breeding grounds in the Northeast to warmer wintering areas south of our region. Migratory birds include many species of raptors and waterfowl, which we often notice because of the birds’ large size and their tendency to travel in groups. Sometimes, as is the case…

  Of all the non-native, invasive plants in the Northeast, buckthorn is among the most hated by forest stewards. There are two types of invasive buckthorn in our region: glossy buckthorn (Frangula alnus) and common buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica), also called European buckthorn. Both plants grow quickly, have prolific seed spreading habits, and have become so…