Late one January afternoon, my husband and I stood on the shore of a frozen pond below the summit of Camel’s Hump, admiring the view. Suddenly we...
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...
A couple of decades ago, I spent several winters living in Crested Butte, Colo., where I learned to peer into the cottonwood trees between Route...
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...
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...
On spring evenings, just before dark, I used to hear a faint drumroll coming from somewhere off in the wooded hills. It sounded to me like an old...
This week feels like fall proper. It’s gray, drizzly, 50s; the kind of weather that makes you realize you’d better batten down the house for winter...
As a kid, I was fascinated and terrified by the idea of carnivorous plants. Growing up in suburban New Jersey, my only exposure to this subset of...
“Squish, squash.” I was walking gingerly on a soft, spongy carpet of sphagnum moss in a northern Vermont bog. Magenta blossoms decorated the sheep...
Last February, you might have seen news stories about an impending insect apocalypse.“Huge global extinction risk.” “Plummeting insect numbers...
A regular chore of mine is to dispose of the mice and moles trapped in our home. I place them on a 4-by-5-foot patch of dirt and rock — which I...
Freshwater mussels are not exactly charismatic. They don’t flit gracefully about like a Karner blue butterfly, or munch on clover like a cottontail...