Cinnamon fern withstands the tests of time
Contemplating the cinnamon fern in our woods, I see in one glance the spores ripening over spring and summer, the creep of a rhizome over centuries, and the hundreds of millions of years of a lineage that has watched the dinosaurs come and go.
Bog beauty: White-fringed bog-orchid
White-fringed bog-orchid (Platanthera blephariglottis) is the showiest of our region’s 13 bog orchids, all members of the genus Platanthera.
A species of its own, the smooth green snake is a grassland hidden jewel
Most of our northeastern snakes draw their coloring from the palette of earthly tones, coming in browns, grays, and yellows. One species stands out: the smooth green snake, an emerald reptile that looks like it would be more at home in a tropical rainforest than in our northern biomes.
Jewelweed: A hummingbird magnet
Delicate orange flowers spotted with red-brown are known as jewelweed or spotted touch-me-not (Impatiens capensis). The name jewelweed may refer to the way silvery drops of rain and dew bead up on the bluntly toothed leaves or the way the flowers dangle like earrings.
As hunters, dragonflies surpass sharks in catching prey
Imagine you’re a fruit fly by the pond on a sunny day, whirring along in search of food or other flies. Suddenly, you’re scooped up, whisked to a perch, and efficiently devoured by a blue dasher dragonfly. For little flies like you, blue dashers have a 97% capture rate. For comparison, great white sharks only catch their prey 50% of the time.
A meal worth the sting
A number of our bird species, then, eat a non-negligible amount of stinging bees and wasps. So how do they do it?
The cecropia: A moth with a mission
The cecropia is North America’s largest moth, similar in size to a giant swallowtail butterfly. It’s one of several species of giant silk moths in the Northeast.
Glow-worms, blinkers, ghosts: The hidden diversity of fireflies
“Firefly” refers to more than one species in the beetle family Lampyridae. Some of the many include the Chiricahua glow-worm, twilight bush baby, Florida fishhook, double cousin, creekside tree blinker, Bill’s hitch, heebie-jeebie, quick one-two, and superb ghost.
Northeastern crayfish: Tiny predators with big impact
Crayfish are an essential part of the food web in river ecosystems, connecting to more than 240 other animals through the food web.
Tussock cottongrass: Champion of low-lying bogs and alpine heights
Thriving in both swampy bogs and alpine heights, tussock cottongrasses wave in the summer wind with 'a sprinkling of stars across the flat expanse that makes you feel like you've wandered into some kind of heaven.
Bird songs compete with the sounds of modern society
Given the almost unimaginable loss of roughly 3 billion birds in North America over the last 50 years – a decline that continues to accelerate across nearly half of the species scientists have studied – quantifying the impacts of noise pollution may help preserve our avian populations.
Wild Oats: Spring’s bashful bellwort
Standing out is hard among such a flashy crowd, especially for one particularly understated spring ephemeral: sessile-leaved bellwort (Uvularia sessilifolia), known more commonly as wild oats.
Spring ephermerals and the vernal dam hypothesis
Every year I know that spring has arrived when it’s time for my family to forage for ramps on a two-acre patch on the hill above my house. We have just a few weeks to enjoy their spiciness before they disappear from the landscape, along with other spring ephemerals.
Why did the frog cross the road?
In spring, when temperatures rise above 40 degrees Fahrenheit and usher in gentle rains, a plethora of life emerges from the forest.
In search of cellar holes and old foundations
Stone foundations are the less-talked-about cousins of the storied stone walls that trace the landscape. Both are legacies of the glacier that covered all of New England until 13,000 years ago, leaving a layer of till – tumbled-up dirt and stone of every size.
Lengthening days of spring
Light in the evening brings the first sign of spring’s arrival. Before the snow has fully melted or any scraps of green start to appear, those lengthening days are a promise.
Gobbling and strutting through wild turkey mating season
As the days get longer and warmer, wild turkeys start feeling the urge to begin the spring shuffle, wandering in search of breeding opportunities and nesting sites.
Backyard neighbor: Ubiquitous, melodious song sparrows
In early March, birds that have been gone all winter begin appearing at my feeder. One of the earliest of these spring migrants is a brown-backed sparrow with a white breast coarsely streaked with brown
Fishers inherently practice family planning
Fishers have a reputation as the northern forests’ ultimate misanthropes. These mesocarnivores are so territorial that within six to eight months after their birth, young fishers are unceremoniously pushed out of their mother’s home range to fend for themselves.
Seeds, frazil and flocs tell the story of ice
During some recent winters, climate change has brought unseasonably warm spells, incomplete ice covers, decreased water levels, and insignificant snowfall, all of which expose ice formations normally unseen. These formations are known as frazil (often referred to as “frazil ice”), and they don’t begin in water; they begin in the air.