The Outside Story
-
White-footed mice are just seeking a warm house
During winter, I often hear gnawing and the scurrying of little feet inside the walls of our house. Mice have taken shelter in our old farmhouse again.
-
The Outside Story: The evergreen Christmas fern
Tromping through our woods in December in search of a Christmas tree, I often notice an evergreen fern, one of the few green plants on the forest floor…
-
The Outside Story: Keeping winter coats clean
Standing on the berm of a small pond, I watch the resident beaver leave its lodge, a silhouetted nose moving through the water.
-
The Outside Story: Autumn migration: Dragons on the move
The great annual movements of fall include monarch butterflies winging toward Mexico, whales heading to the Caribbean to give birth, and multitudes of birds in the autumn skies.…
-
The Outside Story: Late blooming flowers are important to feed native bees
As the height-of-summer floral abundance fades, goldenrods and asters fill the landscape with hits of yellow, purple, pink, and white. Beyond the beauty they provide, these late bloomers…
-
The Outside Story: The tale of a lake tsunami
The sharpest contrast between rivers and lakes is in water movement. While rivers flow inexorably downhill, lake water movement is more subtle.
-
The Outside Story: Fascinating adaptations of frogs
Frogs have hopped about Earth since before the time of the dinosaurs, and it shows. Celebrated for their amphibious lifestyle and cacophonous choruses, the long arc of frog…
-
The Outside Story: The solar eclipse
In the cosmic dance of heavenly bodies, no phenomenon possesses the drama of a solar eclipse, when the moon passes directly between the sun and earth.
-
The Outside Story: Maple sugaring adapts to climate change
Boiling maple sap into syrup is a time-honored tradition in the Northeast, to the olfactory delight of anyone who has spent time in a steamy sugarhouse while inhaling…
-
The Outside Story: The complicated lives of conifer seeds
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…
-
The Outside Story: Thundersnow
It’s deep in winter, and a nor’easter is dumping snow outside. In between the howling winds you hear a boom!
-
The Outside Story: Little creatures in winter streams
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,…
-
The Outside Story: How trees prepare for Vermont winters
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…
-
The Outside Story: Otters among us
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…
-
The outside story: Looking up for Geminid meteor shower
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…
-
The Outside Story: Why do some mushrooms glow in the dark?
Mycologists have speculated for centuries about the reasons fungi produce light. Here’s the story of some that do.