The great horned owl is an impressive bird, measuring up to 25 inches from head to tail, with a four-foot wingspread.  In North America, only the snowy owl and the great gray owl are sometimes larger.  Even if heard and not seen, the great horned owl’s stature is discernible.  The four to eight resonant “hoots”  of both males and females can be heard for a

What images cloud your mind when you think of an extreme environment?  The Sahara desert at high noon?  20,000 leagues under the sea? Maybe Antarctica on a dark winter day?  How about a little closer to home – the summits of our highest peaks right here in the Northeast.

While enjoying a day of skiing this winter, you may be quite near the summits of one of the lofty peaks.  Take a moment and examine the land at your feet.  These high elevation areas contain unique plants and animals found nowhere else in the world.  They exist in these small “sky islands

Identifying tracks in the snow can be daunting, especially if the snow is light and fluffy, leaving few details of the animal’s foot.  However, on days when snow conditions allow nails and pads to be seen, there are ways of finding out what creatures have been active.  While the dimensions of a track, as well as the length of the stride of an animal and the width of its trail are crucial aids to identification, there are other traits to take into consideration. A primer on the dog family illustrates the kind of observations that are helpful in identifying tracks.

There are four me

Like ghosts from the Arctic, snowy owls have descended on New England this winter. They’re showing up in fields, along highways and even in a few backyards. These migrations southward from the arctic tundra are a birdwatcher’s dream. And like dreams themselves, they are neither predictable nor fully understood.

The classic theory held by ornithologists to explain the irregular migrations of snowy owls to this region  has always centered on lemmings, a favorite food of the owls. These small rodents undergo populati

At the beginning of each winter, I snowshoe past a few rock ledges near my house to see if there are any local porcupines in residence.  Some winters, there is a lot of activity and during others, I find no one home.  Recent findings by biologists from Quebec University at Rimouski show a correlation between porcupine density and solar cycles.  It turns out that the sun may set the rhythm of population fluctuations of porcupines in the woods and perhaps my chances of finding them each winter.

Porcupines are most susceptible during the lean winter months.  To prepare for winter an in

Anyone who has looked closely at a snowflake under a magnifying glass, or even with their naked eye, has an appreciation for the intricacy and delicacy of these frozen ice crystals that descend from the sky.  Exactly how do they form and why do they assume the shapes that they do?

I am hanging from the top of a twenty-five foot Balsam Fir tree, 3,500 feet up a mountain on a breezy day counting cones.  It is a bit like being on an amusement park ride.

It has been known for some time that Balsam Fir cone crops in the Northeast generally follow a two-year cycle.  The fir trees usually produce large cone crops in odd years and few or no cones in even years. 

A biologist in New Brunswick monitored Balsam Fir for thirty years beginning in 1920.  The two-year cycle only broke three times. More recently, forest ecologists have recorded the same cycle i

If you think winter in the Northeast is long for humans, consider it from a beaver’s perspective. Beavers spend several months trapped under the ice of their pond, confined to a lodge with an interior chamber that measures roughly three to five feet in diameter and a couple of feet high.  A new lodge is occupied by one or two beavers, but older, larger lodges can house several generations -- a pair of beavers plus this year’s three to four kits, as well as several yearlings. Not only is there usually not much elbow room

At 5 degrees below zero, butterflies were the last things on my mind as I brushed the fluffy snow from the porch.  But as I swept away the last flakes along the railing, I noticed a small, brown sack about the size of a tootsie roll attached to the wood.  It was firmly held in place by fine threads.  Back inside with a warm cup of cider and my field guide, I identified it as a chrysalis of a Black Swallowtail butterfly.  Many Black Swallowtail caterpillars fed on my dill plants in the nearby garden for most of the

On a clear day, while standing on the summit of Mt. Mansfield, you can look west across the narrow Champlain valley to the steep crags of the Adirondacks.  A view to the east features the massive wall of the White Mountains, with Mt. Washington towering above all.  How did these rocks get so high?

The rock under your feet is a metamorphic rock called schist, under the White Mountains lies granite, and at the heart of the Adirondacks is an ancient (even by geologic standards) metamorphic rock.  All of these formed in different ways at different times.  The story spans some 1.4

If you want to find where sweet fruits remain clinging to trees into the winter, follow a flock of bohemian waxwings. Sugary fruits are the mainstay of their diet throughout the year.  Residents of states in the northern tier of the USA usually see these beautiful masked birds in the winter, when they irregularly irrupt south and east of their normal winter range in large numbers.  Bohemian waxwings greatly resemble their cousins, cedar waxwings, but are

The next time you are rushing around your house looking for your car keys, you might think about the chickadees at your bird feeders.  Each fall, Black-capped Chickadees grow new brain cells that may help them remember the locations of things. Songbirds, like the chickadee, are the first vertebrates known to exhibit brain growth as adults.

Because chickadees are so small, it takes a lot of food during the winter to stay warm and alive. A chickadee weighs about the same as two quarters and will easily fit on the

Among North American rodents, the porcupine, Erethizon dorsatum, is second only to the beaver in size. It has relatively poor eyesight and usually lumbers along at a fairly slow pace; even so, the porcupine can defend itself quite effectively with the 30,000 or so quills that cover its entire body, other than its face and belly.  These modified hairs have tiny barbs on the outermost end, which not only grab into a predator’s skin when

Before you start reading this, grab a nickel out of your piggy bank and hold it in the palm of your hand. Golden-crowned kinglets are the smallest birds to winter in the New England woods. They wei

The plant name “holly” brings to mind shiny, evergreen leaves with sharp tips and bright red berries to most people, who often associate it with Christmas.  A native southern species of holly, Read full article >>