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 […]
Tag: Carolyn Lorié
Nymphs in the garden
By Carolyn Lorié By mid-July, the oregano in my herb garden has grown tall and tatty, and I want nothing more than to cut it back into a tidy mound. But I don’t. Doing so would deprive the flurry of […]
The Outside Story: Angry birds
By Carolyn Lorié One morning in mid-March, I opened the door to discover a dark-eyed junco frenetically battling another bird. Or at least it thought it was another bird. His nemesis was, in fact, his own reflection in the stainless-steel […]
In January, owl courtship begins
By Carolyn Lorié I’m an enthusiastic, if laid-back, bird watcher. One of the things I love most about spring and summer is the effortlessness with which I encounter a wide variety of birds. Sitting in my backyard, I’ll catch sight […]
The Outside Story: Fisher families fall out in fall
By Carolyn Lorié Along with the crisp mornings and crimson colors that signal summer’s slide into fall, there are changes occurring in the forests that go mostly unnoticed. Among them is the dispersal of fisher kits from their mother’s territory […]
The Outside Story: Hunting mushrooms: the old, not bold approach
By Carolyn Lorié When you stumble across something purple in the forest, it’s hard not to stop in your tracks. At least it was for me on a recent hike in Thetford, when I came across three purple mushrooms. […]
A thorny problem: multiflora rose
By Carolyn Lorié Multiflora rose is not without charm; in fact, there was a time when people went out of their way to plant it. The pretty spring flowers have a sweet scent; birds nest in the sturdy branches and […]
The Outside Story: Living on the fledge
By Carolyn Lorié On a recent afternoon, I was driving along my road in Thetford when I saw a baby ruffed grouse about the size of a pincushion scurry into the bushes. I had the same impulse I did as […]
The Outside Story: Elms on the rebound?
By Carolyn Lorié On a recent damp May morning I walked around Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., with arborist Brian Beaty. While he is responsible for all of the trees in the center of the campus, our visit focused on […]
The Outside Story: Sneaky ducks and scrambled eggs
By Carolyn Lorié If you peek into a wood duck nesting box during the breeding cycle, you might find 10 to 11 eggs, which is the bird’s normal clutch size. But you might also stumble upon a box overflowing with […]