By Joe Rankin When you think about the iconic landforms of the Northeast, what comes to mind? The mountains, of course. The lakes. Of course. Rivers? Probably. But there’s another. Stone walls. An estimated 100,000 miles of them. They might […]
Tag: the outside story
Quaking Aspen: capturing winter light
By Meghan McCarthy McPhaul Near the house where I lived during my Colorado years, there was a trail that wove through a sprawling grove of perfect quaking aspen trees. In spring, the soft green of emerging leaves was one of […]
A plague of ticks: scientists search for solutions
By Susan Shea On a hike this spring, we walked through a clear-cut area with tall grass and brambles. Afterwards, our pant legs were crawling with black-legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis), also known as deer ticks, the kind that carry Lyme […]
Salamander party tricks
drawn by Adelaide Tyrol By Brett Amy Thelan I once heard of a biologist with a clever party trick: regardless of where or when a given party was taking place, he claimed that he could produce a wild salamander in […]
Deerflies: An intense buzzing game
Illustration by Adelaide Tyrol By Declan McCabe My students and I were conducting research in the Winooski River floodplain at Saint Michael’s College last week when the buzzing became particularly intense. A brisk walk is enough to outdistance mosquitoes, but […]
A dragon devours the sun
By Michael J. Caduto More than 3,000 years ago, the Chinese believed that a dragon ate the sun during a solar eclipse, so they gathered outdoors to drive away the beast by beating pots, pans and drums. Some 500 years […]
Forest tent caterpillars — Rain on a sunny day?
By Lisa Niccolai Walk through a hardwood forest this month and it may seem more like October than July. Trees that normally provide cool shade have bare crowns with just a hint of green. And is the bark on that […]
Woodcock habitat: a combo of open and hidden spaces
By Elise Tillinghast Every year around this time, my husband, kids and I haul out the tent blind from our garage and set it up in the field in front of our house. We toss in a few folding chairs, […]
Time travel in a peat bog
By Declan McCabe Gutter pipes full of soggy peat show up on the bench by my office each March. This means one thing: my colleague Peter Hope’s Saint Michael’s College students are about to experience time travel. You might reasonably […]
“Beaver duck”: the adaptable hooded merganser
By Michael J. Caduto Imagine ten nearly round white eggs snug in a hollow tree, lined with soft feathers plucked from the mother’s breast. The hen carefully tends the 2-inch eggs for about a month until the chicks hatch. Prompted […]