Sky
Why you can see the moon in the daytime sky
The moon spends almost as much time up in daylight as at night, and on the right days it sits plainly in the blue sky.
Field guide
What to notice outside around Sudbury, month by month. Each entry says when to look, how to notice it, and where the facts come from.
In November
Sky
Sky
Sundogs and sun halos: how ice crystals bend sunlight
Ice crystals high in the atmosphere can bend sunlight into a pale ring around the sun or bright patches on either side of it.
Sky
Crepuscular rays: sunbeams fanning out near sunrise and sunset
When broken clouds and haze meet a low sun, bright and dark bands can fan across the sky near sunrise or sunset.
Sky
How the sunset point moves along the horizon through the year
Where the sun sets on your skyline slides north through spring and south through autumn, fastest near the equinoxes and nearly still at each solstice.
Sky
The Pleiades, Taurus and Orion return to the early evening sky
Through late autumn and early winter the Pleiades, Taurus and Orion climb into the eastern sky earlier each night, changing the bedtime sky month by month.
Sky
Why your noon shadow more than doubles from September to December
From the September equinox to the December solstice the midday sun drops from about 47 to about 24 degrees here, and your noon shadow more than doubles.
Sky
The Big Dipper never sets from eastern Massachusetts
From eastern Massachusetts the Big Dipper is circumpolar, circling Polaris once a day, though the tip of its handle skims the horizon at its lowest.
Sky
The Andromeda Galaxy in the evening sky
The Andromeda Galaxy, a spiral galaxy 2.5 million light-years away, is well placed in the evening sky from autumn into winter. Binoculars help.
Sky
The Summer Triangle in the autumn evening sky
Vega, Deneb and Altair, the Summer Triangle, stay up after dark in autumn: high in the south in September and October, west by November.
Sky
Your own shadow by full moonlight
A clear full moon casts a sharp shadow. Moonlight is reflected sunlight, hundreds of thousands of times fainter than direct sun.
Sky
How fast the days get shorter in fall
Between the fall equinox and the winter solstice each day is a little shorter, up to about 20 minutes a week, fading near the solstice.
Sky
Northern lights on a strong geomagnetic storm night
On rare strong geomagnetic storm nights the northern lights may glow low in the north, and a phone camera can show color the eye misses.
Sky
The twinkle test: how to tell a planet from a star
Stars twinkle because they are single points of light; a bright point that shines steady is often a planet, a tiny disk instead.
Sky
The moon illusion: why the rising moon looks so big
A rising full moon looks huge but measures the same width as it does higher in the sky. Test it with your fingernail.
Sky
Earthshine: the faint glow on a crescent Moon's dark side
On a thin crescent Moon the dark part of the disk can glow faintly, lit by sunlight that bounced off Earth first.
Sky
How to spot satellites crossing the sky after dusk
Satellites, including the International Space Station, glide across the sky as steady points of light after sunset and before sunrise, lit by sunlight.
Sky
Sun pillars: a column of light above the low sun
A narrow shaft of light standing up from the sun at sunrise or sunset, made by glints from millions of nearly flat ice crystals drifting level.
Sky
Earth's shadow and the Belt of Venus after sunset
On a clear evening a dark blue-gray band rises low in the east after sunset. It is the shadow of the Earth, with the pink Belt of Venus above it.
Weather
Weather
First frost in eastern Massachusetts, and what it shows
A cold, calm morning can outline leaves, seed heads, webs and tracks in frost crystals that vanish soon after sunrise.
Weather
Valley fog: why low fields fill with fog on calm fall mornings
On clear, calm fall nights the ground loses heat, cool air slides downhill, and by dawn low fields and river meadows hold pools of fog that clear in hours.
Weather
Hoarfrost: ice crystals growing on twigs, wires and weed stems
On the right cold morning, water vapor turns straight into ice and builds crystals on thin things like fence wire while the ground stays bare.
Weather
Why sound carries so far on cold, clear, calm nights
On a clear calm night the air at your feet ends up colder than the air above, and that flipped layer bends sound back down so it carries much further.
Weather
Why the first ice forms in puddles and buckets before ponds
The season's first ice turns up in puddles, birdbaths and buckets while the middle of the pond stays open, because shallow water stores little heat.
Weather
Steam fog: why ponds seem to smoke on cold autumn mornings
On a sharply cold, calm morning a pond still holding autumn warmth can seem to smoke. The National Weather Service calls it steam fog.
Weather
Why there is frost when the air never dropped below freezing
On a clear, still night a surface facing the sky loses heat faster than the air, dropping below freezing while the air a few feet up does not.
Weather
Second summer: the warm spell that follows the first autumn frost
Second summer is a stretch of abnormally warm weather in mid to late autumn after the first frost, the name the American Meteorological Society recommends.
Weather
Nor'easters: named for the wind, not the path
A nor'easter is a coastal storm named for the northeast wind over the coast, though the storm itself usually moves up the coast toward the northeast.
Weather
Why chimney smoke spreads flat on calm cold mornings
On clear, calm, cold mornings, smoke rises a little then spreads sideways, held under a layer of warmer air above the cold ground.
Weather
Graupel: how to tell snow pellets from sleet and hail
Soft, opaque white pellets made when supercooled droplets freeze onto a snowflake. They crumble in your fingers; sleet and hard hail do not.
Weather
Why frost lasts longest on the north side
Frost and snow stay longest on the shaded, north-facing side of roofs, walls and hills, where the low winter sun strikes little or none.
Weather
How to find low pressure with your back to the wind
Stand with your back to a steady wind and the center of low pressure lies off to your left, a little ahead.
Weather
What a jet contrail says about the air up high
A short-lived contrail means relatively dry air high up; one that lingers and spreads means the air up there holds a lot of moisture.
Weather
Glaze ice: what freezing rain does to twigs and wires
Rain that freezes the moment it touches a cold surface can coat every twig, bud and wire in a layer of ice called glaze.
Weather
Why snow can fall when it is above freezing
Snow forms in freezing air aloft and can reach the ground on a day a few degrees above 32 F, because dry air cools the falling flakes.
Birds
Birds
Canada goose families merging into big flocks after the summer molt
Once the flightless summer molt ends in late July, Canada goose families in eastern Massachusetts pool into growing flocks that graze fields and use ponds.
Birds
White-throated sparrows returning to Massachusetts yards in fall
From mid-September, white-throated sparrows that summered in the north woods return to Massachusetts yards, scratching in the leaf litter and whistling.
Birds
Why robins travel in fruit-eating flocks in fall and winter
Through fall and winter, robins stop patrolling lawns alone and roam in nomadic flocks that live on fruit, which can be over 90 percent of the diet.
Birds
Wild turkey flocks in fall: hens and broods joining forces
In fall, hens and their grown broods join forces, and New England turkey flocks commonly hold several families, 40 or more birds, sweeping across fields.
Birds
Starling flocks twisting in unison: why they fly as one shape
Autumn starling flocks in Massachusetts fly as one shape-shifting cloud, turning in unison because no falcon can pick one bird out of a swirl of thousands.
Birds
Ducks arriving at Great Meadows in Concord through late autumn
Ducks keep arriving on eastern Massachusetts marshes after the songbirds leave, and at Great Meadows in Concord, pools reflooded through fall feed them.
Birds
Crows flying to a shared winter roost before sunset
After nesting, American crows pile into one enormous shared night roost, and for about an hour before sunset long loose strings of them pass overhead.
Birds
Dark-eyed juncos: the gray winter bird under the feeder
The dark-eyed junco, a slate-grey sparrow with a white belly, is in eastern Massachusetts yards from October to April, feeding on the ground under feeders.
Birds
Crow or raven: how to tell them apart by the tail
Crows and common ravens are both big black birds, and the tail settles it at a glance: a crow's opens like a fan, a raven's like a wedge.
Birds
Yellow-rumped warblers eating berries in late fall
Yellow-rumped warblers are the common late-fall warbler in eastern Massachusetts, working fruiting shrubs in loose flocks after other warblers leave.
Birds
Golden-crowned kinglets in the pines from fall into winter
Golden-crowned kinglets, among North America's tiniest songbirds, pass through Massachusetts conifers from mid-September through November.
Birds
Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks at bird feeders
Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks hunt songbirds at backyard feeders in Massachusetts; a feeder that suddenly empties may have one nearby.
Birds
Winter finch irruptions and the forecast that predicts them
Northern finches like pine siskins and redpolls winter farther north, but move south when seed crops fail; a forecast each fall predicts which may come.
Birds
Hermit thrush: the brown thrush that lingers into fall
The hermit thrush, a small brown thrush with a reddish tail, passes through in October and early November, later than the other brown thrushes.
Birds
Black-capped chickadees hiding seeds in bark
Chickadees take seeds from feeders and tuck them into bark crevices to eat later, most of all in autumn and early winter.
Birds
Fox sparrows and their two-footed scratch
A large, rusty-red sparrow that passes through in late fall, hopping forward and scratching back through leaf litter with both feet.
Birds
Cedar waxwing flocks at winter fruit
Crested tan-and-yellow cedar waxwings travel in flocks to fruiting trees and shrubs, and sometimes pass a berry bill to bill.
Birds
Pileated woodpecker holes in dead trees
Pileated woodpeckers chisel large rectangular holes into dead trees, stumps and logs to reach carpenter ants, leaving big wood chips below.
Birds
Red-tailed hawks on roadside poles and trees
Big red-tailed hawks, most with a white chest and a dark belly band, sit on roadside poles and trees watching for mice and voles.
Birds
Snow buntings: Arctic songbirds on winter beaches and fields
Small brown-and-white songbirds from the Arctic winter on dunes, beaches and open fields, flashing white wings as the flock rises.
Birds
Owl pellets and whitewash: signs of an owl roost
Owls cough up the fur and bones of prey as pellets, and under a roost tree they reuse, pellets and white droppings can pile up.
Birds
Carolina wren song: the tea-kettle bird that sings all year
A small rusty-brown wren with a white eyebrow that lives in Massachusetts all year and is one of the few birds that sings in every month.
Birds
Hooded mergansers and their fan-shaped crest
Hooded mergansers are small diving ducks of quiet, tree-lined ponds, and the males can raise a white-and-black crest like a fan.
Birds
Brown creeper: the bird that climbs trunks from the bottom up
The brown creeper is a small streaky-brown bird that looks like bark and climbs trunks from the bottom up, then flutters to the next tree.
Birds
American tree sparrows: the rusty-capped sparrow of winter
American tree sparrows nest in the far north and winter here, hopping in small flocks in weedy fields, hedgerows, and under backyard feeders.
Birds
White-breasted nuthatch: the bird that climbs down trees headfirst
The white-breasted nuthatch climbs down tree trunks headfirst and hangs under branches, which woodpeckers and brown creepers cannot do.
Birds
Downy or hairy woodpecker: how to tell them apart
The two look nearly identical. Compare the bill to the head: short and stubby on the downy, nearly as long as the head on the hairy.
Birds
Crane Beach allows dogs October to March, and snowy owls may visit
Crane Beach bars dogs from April to September and allows them in certain areas from October to March, when snowy owls may rest in the dunes.
Birds
Cape Cod National Seashore beaches in the cold months with a dog
After the shorebird closures end in mid-October, leashed dogs can walk the Seashore's ocean beaches, where common eiders gather offshore.
Birds
Sanderlings and sea ducks on state beaches once DCR's dog ban ends
In the cold months the shore can hold sanderlings and sea ducks. DCR keeps dogs off its coastal beaches through September 15, unless a sign says otherwise.
Birds
Fall waterfowl on the Berkshire lakes counted since 1946
Birders have counted waterfowl on six central Berkshire lakes, including Cheshire Reservoir beside the rail trail, every early November since 1946.
Birds
Blue Jays that mimic hawk calls
Blue Jays often copy the screams of Red-shouldered and Red-tailed Hawks, so a hawk call from a yard tree is worth a look before you name it.
Birds
The Barred Owl's who-cooks-for-you call
The Barred Owl's hoot is a run of 8 to 9 notes that people hear as 'Who cooks for you?' Barred Owls live in Massachusetts year-round.
Birds
Purple Sandpipers on winter rocks and jetties
Purple Sandpipers are stocky, dark gray shorebirds that spend the winter on wave-washed rocks, jetties, and breakwaters.
Insects
Insects
Goldenrod ball galls in winter, and the fly larva living inside
The round swellings on dry goldenrod stems, marble to golf ball size, are each a fly larva's winter room, built by the plant on the larva's instructions.
Insects
Mantis egg cases on winter twigs
A mantis lays one hard foam case in autumn and dies. The case sits out all winter on a twig or fence post, with dozens to hundreds of eggs inside.
Insects
Small tan moths at outdoor lights on mild November to January nights
On mild nights from mid-November into January, small tan moths gather at outdoor lights while their nearly wingless mates crawl up tree trunks.
Insects
How honey bees survive winter by huddling and shivering
A honey bee colony stays awake all winter, packed into a ball in the hive and vibrating flight muscles for heat, burning stored honey until spring.
Insects
Bark beetle galleries: the patterns carved under loose bark
Under loose bark on a dead log, a branching pattern in the wood marks a female beetle's egg gallery, with each side tunnel cut by one feeding larva.
Insects
Leaf packs in brooks and the insect larvae that eat them
After leaves fall, small streams collect them in soggy leaf packs, and crane fly and some stonefly and caddisfly larvae feed on them into winter.
Insects
Giant silk moth cocoons on bare twigs
After leaf fall, cecropia cocoons cling to shrub twigs and promethea cocoons hang inside a curled leaf held by silk.
Insects
Which way a snail shell coils
Held tip up with the opening facing you, a northeastern land-snail shell almost always opens on the right. Physa pond snails coil left.
Insects
Garden spider egg sacs that can last through winter
Orb weavers die in autumn, but their papery brown egg sacs can stay on garden plants all winter, with young spiders waiting inside.
Insects
Why deer ticks stay active after frost
Adult deer ticks are not killed by freezing weather and look for a host on days above freezing when the ground is thawed and free of snow.
Insects
Hemlock woolly adelgid: the white wool on hemlock twigs
Tiny white cottony tufts under hemlock twigs are an invasive sap-feeding insect. They start small in late fall and fill out by spring.
Insects
Western conifer seed bug: the leaf-footed bug on your window
A large, harmless brown bug that seeks shelter on sunny walls and indoors in fall. Look for a flat, leaf-shaped flare on each hind leg.
Insects
Bagworm bags on arborvitae, juniper and spruce
The small hanging bags on evergreens through the cold months are bagworm cases, and each one that held a female holds the next generation's eggs.
Plants
Plants
Acorn crops, and why a heavy year draws wildlife under the oaks
Oak acorn crops swing widely from year to year and tree to tree, and a heavy year concentrates squirrels, deer, turkeys and more wherever acorns fall.
Plants
Next spring's tree buds, already formed at the twig tips by fall
Trees in eastern Massachusetts build next spring's buds near the end of the growing season, so by fall every twig tip already carries next year.
Plants
Witch hazel: the shrub that blooms from October into December
Spidery yellow flowers with four crinkled ribbon petals open on bare witch hazel branches from October into December, beside last year's fruit.
Plants
Winterberry holly: red berries on bare branches in wet ground
Winterberry is a holly that drops its leaves, so by late autumn its fruit stands bare on grey twigs in swampy places and holds there into winter.
Plants
Identifying trees by their bark in winter
With the leaves down, bark tells trees apart: shagbark hickory peels in long strips, black cherry breaks into dark curling plates, red oak runs in ridges.
Plants
Larch, or tamarack: the conifer that turns gold and drops its needles
Larch is the only native New England conifer that turns color and sheds every needle each autumn, going gold from mid-October into early November.
Plants
Why some beech and oak trees keep their dead leaves all winter
American beech and several oaks carry some dead leaves into winter, a habit called marcescence, mostly on young trees and the low branches of tall ones.
Plants
Hemlock groves in winter: less snow, less light, and deer shelter
An eastern hemlock grove is so dense that far less snow reaches the ground and the light dims as you step in, which is why deer gather there in winter.
Plants
Clubmoss: tiny evergreen forests on the winter woodland floor
After leaf fall, patches of evergreen clubmoss stand out on brown leaf litter in eastern Massachusetts woods, spore-bearing plants related to ferns.
Plants
Oriental bittersweet: the invasive vine with orange and red berries
Oriental bittersweet is an invasive Asian vine whose yellow-orange capsules split in fall to show red berries, and birds carry its seeds to new ground.
Plants
Sumac fruit cones: red winter food for birds
Staghorn and smooth sumac hold upright cones of fuzzy red fruit through winter, which birds pass over until other food runs out.
Plants
Norway maples: the street maple that keeps its leaves late
Norway maples, an invasive European tree, often hold their leaves longer than native maples, then turn yellow. A snapped leaf stalk shows milky sap.
Plants
Counting a young white pine's age by its branch whorls
A young white pine grows one ring of branches, a whorl, for each year of upward growth, so counting the rings estimates its age.
Plants
Teaberry, the wintergreen with red berries
A low evergreen of oak and pine woods that can hold red berries through the cold months, with leaves that smell of wintergreen.
Plants
Cattail seed heads and their winter fluff
A brown cattail head can hold more than two hundred thousand seeds, and it comes apart into cottony fluff that carries them on the wind.
Plants
How to read tree rings on a cut stump
A light spring band and a dark late band make one ring. Wide rings often mean good years; narrow ones can mean drought or crowding.
Plants
Why dry moss opens up when it gets wet
When moss dries out, the leaves of many kinds curl or press flat against the stem. Add water and they spread open again.
Plants
Red rose hips on wild rose canes
Wild roses hold red fruits called hips on their thorny canes into winter, and birds and mammals eat them when food is scarce.
Plants
Opposite buds and the MAD Cap Horse twig test
Buds in pairs on a bare twig very likely mean a maple, ash, dogwood or horsechestnut, or a shrub like a viburnum.
Plants
Why big rhododendron leaves roll up in the cold
On a hard-freezing morning some big-leaved rhododendrons roll their leaves inward and hang them down, then unroll as it warms.
Plants
Partridgeberry: the red berry made from two flowers
A small evergreen of the forest floor whose red berry grows from two fused flowers and carries two small round scars.
Plants
Hitchhiker seeds: burdock, beggarticks and tick-trefoil
Burs and barbed seeds that hook onto socks and fur on fall walks along field edges, and how to sort and remove them.
Plants
Red-osier and silky dogwood: colored stems after leaf fall
Bare red to purple dogwood stems stand out in thickets along ponds, streams and wet meadows once the leaves drop.
Plants
Frost cracks and frost ribs on tree trunks
A long vertical seam or raised ridge on a trunk marks where bark split in a past cold snap and the tree grew new tissue over it.
Plants
Winter rosettes: plants that wait out the cold flat on the ground
Queen Anne's lace, common mullein, bull thistle, and shepherd's purse spend the cold months as flat green circles of leaves on the ground.
Plants
Sycamore and London planetree seed balls in winter
Sycamore and London planetree keep round, bristly seed balls hanging from bare branches, which break apart through winter and into spring.
Plants
Tar spot: the black blotches on maple leaves
Tar spot is a fungus that leaves raised black blotches, like drips of tar, on maple leaves, largest on Norway maples, and it winters on the fallen leaves.
Plants
Tell pines apart by counting needles in a bundle
Eastern white pine has 5 needles to a bundle, pitch pine 3, and red pine 2 that snap when bent, though some planted pines have 2 as well.
Plants
Polypody ferns on boulders and rocky slopes
Polypody ferns are small evergreen ferns that grow in mats on boulders, cliffs and rocky slopes, and stay green through the winter.
Mammals
Mammals
Why gray squirrels bury nuts one by one each fall
Each fall gray squirrels bury nuts one at a time across yards and woods, and the caches they never dig up can sprout into oaks, hickories and walnuts.
Mammals
Beaver signs: chewed stumps and pale wood chips along pond edges
Beavers work mostly at night, so pointed stumps, pale wood chips and paired tooth grooves along a pond edge are often easier to find than the animal.
Mammals
Buck rubs on young trees: what they are and when they appear
In early September bucks strip the velvet from their antlers, and through the November rut they leave rubs a foot to three feet up young trunks.
Mammals
Deer rut peak: why deer move by day in the first half of November
For about two weeks, deer drop their dawn-and-dusk routine and move at any hour. It is the rut, and the length of the day, not the cold, sets its clock.
Mammals
White-footed deermice moving indoors in autumn with their seed caches
White-footed deermice move into houses, sheds and garages as nights turn cold, and the first sign is a hoard of seeds or acorn shells, not the mouse.
Mammals
Squirrel dreys: the leaf nests that show up in bare trees
A drey is a gray squirrel's nest of leaves and twigs, a foot or two wide and usually twenty feet up or more, hidden all summer until the leaves come down.
Mammals
Beaver food caches: the winter pantry of sticks beside the lodge
Beavers do not hibernate, so each autumn a family anchors cut branches in the pond mud by the lodge, a food cache they can reach under the ice all winter.
Mammals
Meadow vole runways hidden under matted grass
Meadow voles clip networks of inch-wide trails through grass and use the same paths over and over. Part the matted dead grass at a field edge to find them.
Mammals
Red squirrel cone piles under the pines
Red squirrels strip pine, spruce and hemlock cones at a favorite stump or log, and the scales pile up there over years, up to two feet high.
Mammals
Muskrat lodges: cattail mounds in the marsh
In fall, muskrats pile cattails and mud into dome-shaped lodges in marshes and pond edges for winter shelter; ice push-ups come later.
Mammals
Young red foxes leave home in autumn
Red fox pups born in spring leave their family groups in autumn to find ranges of their own, and some travel a long way.
Mammals
Harbor and gray seals resting on the Massachusetts coast
Seals haul out on rocks, ledges, sandbars and beaches. Harbor seals are mostly cold-month visitors here; watch from 150 feet away.
Mammals
How woodchucks hibernate underground
Woodchucks sleep below the frost line in sealed, grass-lined chambers, with body temperature near the burrow's and a heart at a few beats a minute.
Mammals
River otter latrines and slides
River otters stay active all winter. Look for scat packed with fish scales at banks and docks, and slides down muddy banks.
Mammals
Deer or rabbit: telling who nipped a twig
A ragged, torn twig end points to deer; a clean slanted snip points to a rabbit or hare, though voles cut cleanly too.
Mammals
Mice in birdhouses and old bird nests in winter
White-footed mice move into empty birdhouses and roof over old bird nests for winter. Look at the hole, never handle the nest.
Mammals
Red fox mousing: the listening leap onto hidden prey
A red fox listens for mice and voles it cannot see, then leaps high and dives headfirst into the grass or snow.
Mammals
Deer beds: oval resting spots in leaves and snow
White-tailed deer rest in oval, body-sized patches of flattened leaves, grass or snow, often several together under evergreens or on sunny slopes.
Mammals
Porcupines cannot throw quills, but a nosy dog can get quilled
Mass Audubon says porcupines raise their quills rather than shoot them. If a dog is quilled, Cornell says see a veterinarian; do not pull them yourself.
Mammals
Beavers at dusk from the Pike's Pond boardwalk
Mass Audubon says Pleasant Valley's accessible trail leads to a viewing boardwalk that is usually a good place to see beavers at dusk.
Mammals
Fishers: not cats, and not the night scream
The fisher is a large member of the weasel family, not a cat. It lives throughout Massachusetts except on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.
Fungi
Fungi
Why lichen turns bright green after rain
Rain turns a lichen's gray outer layer see-through so the green algal partner shows, while lichens with cyanobacteria go dark green, brown or black.
Fungi
How fallen leaves turn back into soil over the winter
Under damp leaf piles in eastern Massachusetts yards and woodlots, microbes, millipedes and earthworms turn dead leaves back into soil nutrients.
Fungi
Turkey tail fungus on fallen logs through the winter
Overlapping fans banded brown, buff and cinnamon cover dead hardwood logs all winter, the visible end of the work that turns a fallen tree back into soil.
Fungi
Jelly fungi like witch's butter that swell with rain and shrivel dry
Witch's butter and other jelly fungi are rubbery blobs on dead branches that swell after rain, shrivel to a crust in dry spells, then swell back again.
Fungi
Black knot on cherry trees: the black lumps are a fungus
Hard black swellings on a roadside cherry's twigs are black knot, a native fungus, not fire damage or an insect gall, and it can keep growing for decades.
Fungi
Artist's conk: the shelf fungus you can draw on
Artist's conk is a thick, woody bracket fungus on hardwood trunks and stumps that lasts for years, and its white underside bruises brown when scratched.
Fungi
Shaggy mane mushrooms that dissolve into ink
Shaggy manes come up on lawns and roadsides as tall white shaggy caps, then dissolve from the bottom edge into black ink within about a day.
Fungi
Birch polypore, the bracket fungus of birch
A rounded bracket fungus that grows only on birch, with a white to grayish pore surface and a thick rolled rim.
Fungi
British soldier lichen and its bright red caps
A pale green lichen with tiny stalks tipped in bright red, found on old stumps, rotting logs, mossy ground and weathered fence posts.
Fungi
Cedar-apple rust galls on red cedar and juniper
Woody, brown, dimpled galls on red cedar twigs, made by a rust fungus; after warm spring rains a mature gall can sprout orange horns.
Fungi
Old man's beard lichen and its stretchy inner cord
A pale gray-green, hair-like lichen on twigs and branches; it is sensitive to air pollution, and a stretched strand has an elastic cord inside.
Fungi
Tinder conk: the gray hoof fungus on birch and beech
A hard, gray, hoof-shaped fungus on birch and beech trunks that lives for years and can be seen in every season.
Fungi
Lichens on gravestones and old stone walls
The gray, yellow-green and orange crusts on old stone are lichens, a fungus living with an alga, slow growing and differing from one stone type to another.
Fungi
Split gill fungus, the fan that shrivels and revives
A small fuzzy gray-white fan on dead hardwood whose gills are split down the middle. It shrivels in dry spells and starts working again after rain.
Fungi
Chaga: the black, burnt-looking fungus lump on birch trunks
The black, deeply cracked lump on a living birch trunk is chaga, a fungus, not a burn scar or a woody burl. It can sit on the tree for many years.
Fungi
Blue-green stained wood from the Chlorociboria fungus
Fallen sticks and logs stained bright blue-green are colored by a cup fungus called Chlorociboria. Its tiny turquoise cups appear far less often.
Amphibians
Amphibians
Painted turtles basking on logs on bright autumn afternoons
On sunny autumn afternoons painted turtles still haul out onto half-sunk logs and rocks, before moving to the bottom, where they can go months without air.
Amphibians
Why spring peepers call again in autumn from dry woods
Spring peepers call again in autumn from dry upland woods rather than ponds: a single small peep with long silences, often mistaken for a bird.
Amphibians
Red-backed salamanders under logs: salamanders that never go to water
The eastern red-backed salamander lives its whole life under logs and leaf litter, hatching from an egg in a rotten log and never going to water.
Amphibians
Bullfrog tadpoles that spend the winter under the ice
A bullfrog tadpole usually takes two years to turn into a frog, so a November pond holds last year's tadpoles, still tadpoles when the ice goes out.
Landscape
Landscape
Stone walls in New England woods and the farms they once edged
Almost every stone wall in New England woods was a field or pasture edge, built of glacial stones farmers cleared between the Revolution and the Civil War.
Landscape
Kettle holes: ponds and hollows left by melting glacial ice
Some round ponds and deep hollows in eastern Massachusetts mark where a block of ice, stranded and buried as the last glacier retreated, slowly melted.
Landscape
Ice needles: frost columns that grow up out of bare wet ground
On a cold morning after wet ground, bare soil can sprout clusters of ice needles that lifted themselves out overnight, each with a little cap of dirt.
Landscape
Fall pond turnover: why ponds mix from top to bottom in autumn
A pond layered all summer, warm on top and cold below, mixes all the way down in autumn, because water gets denser as it cools to about 4 degrees C.
Landscape
What the woods reveal after the leaves come down
For a few weeks after leaf fall, woods you walk all year show what the canopy hid: old bird nests, squirrel dreys, hornet nests and old stone walls.
Landscape
Why brooks recover in autumn once the trees stop drinking
Small streams bottom out in late summer and recover as the growing season ends, because once trees stop pulling water, rain can reach the water table.
Landscape
Groundwater seeps: the patches of woods that never freeze
Groundwater at a seep arrives near the ground's average annual temperature, so it keeps trickling and stays soft while ponds and brook edges ice over.
Landscape
Glacial erratics: lone boulders the ice sheet left behind
A huge lone boulder in the woods or a field is often not local rock: the last ice sheet carried it from elsewhere and dropped it as it melted.
Landscape
How vernal pools fill back up after a dry summer
A fishless woodland hollow that dries by late summer starts holding water again after late fall rain, filling most with spring rain and snowmelt.
Landscape
Pits and mounds: how uprooted trees shape the forest floor
A mound beside a hollow marks a tree blown over long ago, its roots lifting soil and stone that stayed behind after they rotted.
Landscape
Eskers: winding ridges left by glacial meltwater rivers
An esker is a long, winding ridge of sand and gravel laid down by a meltwater river in a channel within or beneath the last ice sheet.
Landscape
Drumlins: smooth oval hills shaped by glacial ice
Drumlins are smooth, oval hills of glacial till streamlined by moving ice, and eastern Massachusetts has many of them.
Landscape
Wolf trees: old open-grown giants inside young woods
A wolf tree is a huge, wide-crowned tree with low thick limbs among straighter younger trees, a likely sign the spot was once a pasture or field edge.
Landscape
Trout fishing in Massachusetts stays open all year
The statewide trout season runs January 1 to December 31, and MassWildlife says water temperatures stay fine for trout from late September into summer.
Landscape
Native brook trout spawn in stream gravel in October and November
Brook trout are the only trout native to Massachusetts. They spawn in fall, and the eggs stay in the gravel for about three to four months.
Landscape
Life jackets for paddlers from September 15 to May 15
Massachusetts rules say canoeists and kayakers wear a life jacket from September 15 to May 15, and children under 12 wear one on a boat underway all year.
Landscape
Mass Audubon sanctuaries ban dogs while many state parks welcome them
Dog rules on Massachusetts trails come from the landowner: DCR, state wildlife lands, Mass Audubon and The Trustees each have their own.
Landscape
Glacial striations on Massachusetts bedrock ledges
Fine parallel scratches and grooves on bare ledges were cut by stones in the base of an ice sheet, and they record which way the ice moved.
Landscape
Roxbury Puddingstone, the Massachusetts state rock
Roxbury Puddingstone is old gravel of rounded pebbles and cobbles cemented into hard rock. It crops out in ledges and cliffs in and around Boston.
Every month
November
- Canada goose families merging into big flocks after the summer molt
- Why gray squirrels bury nuts one by one each fall
- Beaver signs: chewed stumps and pale wood chips along pond edges
- Acorn crops, and why a heavy year draws wildlife under the oaks
- Next spring's tree buds, already formed at the twig tips by fall
- Why lichen turns bright green after rain
- Why you can see the moon in the daytime sky
- Sundogs and sun halos: how ice crystals bend sunlight
- Crepuscular rays: sunbeams fanning out near sunrise and sunset
- First frost in eastern Massachusetts, and what it shows
- How fallen leaves turn back into soil over the winter
- Stone walls in New England woods and the farms they once edged
- Kettle holes: ponds and hollows left by melting glacial ice
- Valley fog: why low fields fill with fog on calm fall mornings
- White-throated sparrows returning to Massachusetts yards in fall
- Why robins travel in fruit-eating flocks in fall and winter
- Wild turkey flocks in fall: hens and broods joining forces
- Starling flocks twisting in unison: why they fly as one shape
- Buck rubs on young trees: what they are and when they appear
- Goldenrod ball galls in winter, and the fly larva living inside
- Witch hazel: the shrub that blooms from October into December
- Winterberry holly: red berries on bare branches in wet ground
- Turkey tail fungus on fallen logs through the winter
- Hoarfrost: ice crystals growing on twigs, wires and weed stems
- Deer rut peak: why deer move by day in the first half of November
- Ice needles: frost columns that grow up out of bare wet ground
- Mantis egg cases on winter twigs
- Identifying trees by their bark in winter
- Ducks arriving at Great Meadows in Concord through late autumn
- Fall pond turnover: why ponds mix from top to bottom in autumn
- Painted turtles basking on logs on bright autumn afternoons
- What the woods reveal after the leaves come down
- Larch, or tamarack: the conifer that turns gold and drops its needles
- How the sunset point moves along the horizon through the year
- Why some beech and oak trees keep their dead leaves all winter
- Crows flying to a shared winter roost before sunset
- Why spring peepers call again in autumn from dry woods
- Jelly fungi like witch's butter that swell with rain and shrivel dry
- White-footed deermice moving indoors in autumn with their seed caches
- The Pleiades, Taurus and Orion return to the early evening sky
- Why sound carries so far on cold, clear, calm nights
- Why the first ice forms in puddles and buckets before ponds
- Red-backed salamanders under logs: salamanders that never go to water
- Why your noon shadow more than doubles from September to December
- Why brooks recover in autumn once the trees stop drinking
- Dark-eyed juncos: the gray winter bird under the feeder
- Squirrel dreys: the leaf nests that show up in bare trees
- The Big Dipper never sets from eastern Massachusetts
- Steam fog: why ponds seem to smoke on cold autumn mornings
- Beaver food caches: the winter pantry of sticks beside the lodge
- Why there is frost when the air never dropped below freezing
- Groundwater seeps: the patches of woods that never freeze
- Black knot on cherry trees: the black lumps are a fungus
- Small tan moths at outdoor lights on mild November to January nights
- Artist's conk: the shelf fungus you can draw on
- Crow or raven: how to tell them apart by the tail
- Bullfrog tadpoles that spend the winter under the ice
- How honey bees survive winter by huddling and shivering
- Hemlock groves in winter: less snow, less light, and deer shelter
- Bark beetle galleries: the patterns carved under loose bark
- Clubmoss: tiny evergreen forests on the winter woodland floor
- Meadow vole runways hidden under matted grass
- Oriental bittersweet: the invasive vine with orange and red berries
- Yellow-rumped warblers eating berries in late fall
- Golden-crowned kinglets in the pines from fall into winter
- Second summer: the warm spell that follows the first autumn frost
- The Andromeda Galaxy in the evening sky
- Glacial erratics: lone boulders the ice sheet left behind
- Shaggy mane mushrooms that dissolve into ink
- Sumac fruit cones: red winter food for birds
- Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks at bird feeders
- Nor'easters: named for the wind, not the path
- Norway maples: the street maple that keeps its leaves late
- Red squirrel cone piles under the pines
- Winter finch irruptions and the forecast that predicts them
- Muskrat lodges: cattail mounds in the marsh
- Why chimney smoke spreads flat on calm cold mornings
- The Summer Triangle in the autumn evening sky
- Leaf packs in brooks and the insect larvae that eat them
- Hermit thrush: the brown thrush that lingers into fall
- Young red foxes leave home in autumn
- Counting a young white pine's age by its branch whorls
- Black-capped chickadees hiding seeds in bark
- Harbor and gray seals resting on the Massachusetts coast
- Teaberry, the wintergreen with red berries
- How woodchucks hibernate underground
- Cattail seed heads and their winter fluff
- Your own shadow by full moonlight
- Fox sparrows and their two-footed scratch
- Graupel: how to tell snow pellets from sleet and hail
- Why frost lasts longest on the north side
- Cedar waxwing flocks at winter fruit
- Giant silk moth cocoons on bare twigs
- River otter latrines and slides
- Birch polypore, the bracket fungus of birch
- How to read tree rings on a cut stump
- How fast the days get shorter in fall
- Which way a snail shell coils
- Pileated woodpecker holes in dead trees
- Why dry moss opens up when it gets wet
- Northern lights on a strong geomagnetic storm night
- Red rose hips on wild rose canes
- How to find low pressure with your back to the wind
- Opposite buds and the MAD Cap Horse twig test
- Red-tailed hawks on roadside poles and trees
- Deer or rabbit: telling who nipped a twig
- Why big rhododendron leaves roll up in the cold
- What a jet contrail says about the air up high
- Snow buntings: Arctic songbirds on winter beaches and fields
- Garden spider egg sacs that can last through winter
- British soldier lichen and its bright red caps
- Cedar-apple rust galls on red cedar and juniper
- The twinkle test: how to tell a planet from a star
- How vernal pools fill back up after a dry summer
- Glaze ice: what freezing rain does to twigs and wires
- Why deer ticks stay active after frost
- Old man's beard lichen and its stretchy inner cord
- Owl pellets and whitewash: signs of an owl roost
- Hemlock woolly adelgid: the white wool on hemlock twigs
- Western conifer seed bug: the leaf-footed bug on your window
- Mice in birdhouses and old bird nests in winter
- Partridgeberry: the red berry made from two flowers
- Hitchhiker seeds: burdock, beggarticks and tick-trefoil
- The moon illusion: why the rising moon looks so big
- Carolina wren song: the tea-kettle bird that sings all year
- Red fox mousing: the listening leap onto hidden prey
- Tinder conk: the gray hoof fungus on birch and beech
- Pits and mounds: how uprooted trees shape the forest floor
- Why snow can fall when it is above freezing
- Red-osier and silky dogwood: colored stems after leaf fall
- Earthshine: the faint glow on a crescent Moon's dark side
- Eskers: winding ridges left by glacial meltwater rivers
- Frost cracks and frost ribs on tree trunks
- Hooded mergansers and their fan-shaped crest
- Brown creeper: the bird that climbs trunks from the bottom up
- Drumlins: smooth oval hills shaped by glacial ice
- American tree sparrows: the rusty-capped sparrow of winter
- Winter rosettes: plants that wait out the cold flat on the ground
- Deer beds: oval resting spots in leaves and snow
- How to spot satellites crossing the sky after dusk
- White-breasted nuthatch: the bird that climbs down trees headfirst
- Sycamore and London planetree seed balls in winter
- Tar spot: the black blotches on maple leaves
- Bagworm bags on arborvitae, juniper and spruce
- Lichens on gravestones and old stone walls
- Wolf trees: old open-grown giants inside young woods
- Tell pines apart by counting needles in a bundle
- Split gill fungus, the fan that shrivels and revives
- Sun pillars: a column of light above the low sun
- Downy or hairy woodpecker: how to tell them apart
- Chaga: the black, burnt-looking fungus lump on birch trunks
- Earth's shadow and the Belt of Venus after sunset
- Trout fishing in Massachusetts stays open all year
- Native brook trout spawn in stream gravel in October and November
- Life jackets for paddlers from September 15 to May 15
- Porcupines cannot throw quills, but a nosy dog can get quilled
- Mass Audubon sanctuaries ban dogs while many state parks welcome them
- Crane Beach allows dogs October to March, and snowy owls may visit
- Cape Cod National Seashore beaches in the cold months with a dog
- Sanderlings and sea ducks on state beaches once DCR's dog ban ends
- Beavers at dusk from the Pike's Pond boardwalk
- Fall waterfowl on the Berkshire lakes counted since 1946
- Blue Jays that mimic hawk calls
- Blue-green stained wood from the Chlorociboria fungus
- Glacial striations on Massachusetts bedrock ledges
- The Barred Owl's who-cooks-for-you call
- Fishers: not cats, and not the night scream
- Polypody ferns on boulders and rocky slopes
- Purple Sandpipers on winter rocks and jetties
- Roxbury Puddingstone, the Massachusetts state rock
December
- Beaver signs: chewed stumps and pale wood chips along pond edges
- Next spring's tree buds, already formed at the twig tips by fall
- Why lichen turns bright green after rain
- Why you can see the moon in the daytime sky
- Sundogs and sun halos: how ice crystals bend sunlight
- Crepuscular rays: sunbeams fanning out near sunrise and sunset
- How fallen leaves turn back into soil over the winter
- Stone walls in New England woods and the farms they once edged
- Kettle holes: ponds and hollows left by melting glacial ice
- Why robins travel in fruit-eating flocks in fall and winter
- Wild turkey flocks in fall: hens and broods joining forces
- Starling flocks twisting in unison: why they fly as one shape
- Goldenrod ball galls in winter, and the fly larva living inside
- Witch hazel: the shrub that blooms from October into December
- Winterberry holly: red berries on bare branches in wet ground
- Turkey tail fungus on fallen logs through the winter
- Geminid meteor shower: the one you can watch before bedtime
- Hoarfrost: ice crystals growing on twigs, wires and weed stems
- Reading animal tracks in snow by the pattern of the whole trail
- Why fresh snow makes everything so quiet
- Ice needles: frost columns that grow up out of bare wet ground
- How wood frogs freeze solid in winter and come back in spring
- Mantis egg cases on winter twigs
- Identifying trees by their bark in winter
- Ducks arriving at Great Meadows in Concord through late autumn
- How the sunset point moves along the horizon through the year
- Why some beech and oak trees keep their dead leaves all winter
- Crows flying to a shared winter roost before sunset
- Jelly fungi like witch's butter that swell with rain and shrivel dry
- The Pleiades, Taurus and Orion return to the early evening sky
- Why sound carries so far on cold, clear, calm nights
- Why your noon shadow more than doubles from September to December
- Dark-eyed juncos: the gray winter bird under the feeder
- Squirrel dreys: the leaf nests that show up in bare trees
- The Big Dipper never sets from eastern Massachusetts
- Why there is frost when the air never dropped below freezing
- Groundwater seeps: the patches of woods that never freeze
- Black knot on cherry trees: the black lumps are a fungus
- Small tan moths at outdoor lights on mild November to January nights
- Artist's conk: the shelf fungus you can draw on
- Crow or raven: how to tell them apart by the tail
- Bullfrog tadpoles that spend the winter under the ice
- How honey bees survive winter by huddling and shivering
- Hemlock groves in winter: less snow, less light, and deer shelter
- Bark beetle galleries: the patterns carved under loose bark
- Clubmoss: tiny evergreen forests on the winter woodland floor
- Meadow vole runways hidden under matted grass
- Oriental bittersweet: the invasive vine with orange and red berries
- Golden-crowned kinglets in the pines from fall into winter
- The Andromeda Galaxy in the evening sky
- Glacial erratics: lone boulders the ice sheet left behind
- Sumac fruit cones: red winter food for birds
- Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks at bird feeders
- Nor'easters: named for the wind, not the path
- Red squirrel cone piles under the pines
- Winter finch irruptions and the forecast that predicts them
- Why chimney smoke spreads flat on calm cold mornings
- Leaf packs in brooks and the insect larvae that eat them
- Christmas fern: the fern that stays green all winter
- Counting a young white pine's age by its branch whorls
- Black-capped chickadees hiding seeds in bark
- Why the earliest sunset comes before the shortest day
- Harbor and gray seals resting on the Massachusetts coast
- Teaberry, the wintergreen with red berries
- How woodchucks hibernate underground
- Cattail seed heads and their winter fluff
- Your own shadow by full moonlight
- Graupel: how to tell snow pellets from sleet and hail
- Why frost lasts longest on the north side
- Cedar waxwing flocks at winter fruit
- Giant silk moth cocoons on bare twigs
- River otter latrines and slides
- Birch polypore, the bracket fungus of birch
- How to read tree rings on a cut stump
- Pileated woodpecker holes in dead trees
- Why dry moss opens up when it gets wet
- Northern lights on a strong geomagnetic storm night
- Where chipmunks spend the winter
- Red rose hips on wild rose canes
- How to find low pressure with your back to the wind
- Opposite buds and the MAD Cap Horse twig test
- Sea ducks on the winter ocean
- Red-tailed hawks on roadside poles and trees
- Deer or rabbit: telling who nipped a twig
- Why big rhododendron leaves roll up in the cold
- What a jet contrail says about the air up high
- Snow buntings: Arctic songbirds on winter beaches and fields
- Garden spider egg sacs that can last through winter
- British soldier lichen and its bright red caps
- Cedar-apple rust galls on red cedar and juniper
- Eastern tent caterpillar egg bands on winter twigs
- The twinkle test: how to tell a planet from a star
- How vernal pools fill back up after a dry summer
- Glaze ice: what freezing rain does to twigs and wires
- Why deer ticks stay active after frost
- Old man's beard lichen and its stretchy inner cord
- Owl pellets and whitewash: signs of an owl roost
- Hemlock woolly adelgid: the white wool on hemlock twigs
- Western conifer seed bug: the leaf-footed bug on your window
- Mice in birdhouses and old bird nests in winter
- Partridgeberry: the red berry made from two flowers
- The moon illusion: why the rising moon looks so big
- Carolina wren song: the tea-kettle bird that sings all year
- Red fox mousing: the listening leap onto hidden prey
- Tinder conk: the gray hoof fungus on birch and beech
- Pits and mounds: how uprooted trees shape the forest floor
- Why snow can fall when it is above freezing
- Red-osier and silky dogwood: colored stems after leaf fall
- Earthshine: the faint glow on a crescent Moon's dark side
- Eskers: winding ridges left by glacial meltwater rivers
- Frost cracks and frost ribs on tree trunks
- Hooded mergansers and their fan-shaped crest
- Northern short-tailed shrews in winter
- How pond turtles survive the winter under the ice
- Brown creeper: the bird that climbs trunks from the bottom up
- Drumlins: smooth oval hills shaped by glacial ice
- American tree sparrows: the rusty-capped sparrow of winter
- Winter rosettes: plants that wait out the cold flat on the ground
- Deer beds: oval resting spots in leaves and snow
- Horned and gouty oak galls on bare oak twigs
- How to spot satellites crossing the sky after dusk
- White-breasted nuthatch: the bird that climbs down trees headfirst
- Bald eagles at open water in winter
- Winter catkins on hazel, alder, birch, and hophornbeam
- Sycamore and London planetree seed balls in winter
- Willow pinecone galls on bare willow twigs
- Eastern bluebirds that stay through the winter
- Bumblebee queens dormant underground in winter
- Muskrat push-ups: plant mounds on marsh ice
- Why frozen ponds ping, chirp and growl
- Where red-backed salamanders spend the winter
- Shed deer antlers on the winter forest floor
- Bagworm bags on arborvitae, juniper and spruce
- Lichens on gravestones and old stone walls
- Snowflake shapes on a dark sleeve
- Wolf trees: old open-grown giants inside young woods
- Weasels in winter white and their tracks in snow
- Why static shocks come back every winter
- Sirius, the brightest star, found by following Orion's belt
- Ripples on icicles
- Tell pines apart by counting needles in a bundle
- Split gill fungus, the fan that shrivels and revives
- Sun pillars: a column of light above the low sun
- Why shadows on snow look blue
- Downy or hairy woodpecker: how to tell them apart
- Witches' brooms: dense twig clusters on tree branches
- Beech bark disease: white fluff and craters on beech trunks
- Chaga: the black, burnt-looking fungus lump on birch trunks
- Why the winter full moon rides so high in the sky
- Earth's shadow and the Belt of Venus after sunset
- Winter fireflies: the firefly that spends winter on tree bark
- Trout fishing in Massachusetts stays open all year
- Life jackets for paddlers from September 15 to May 15
- Porcupines cannot throw quills, but a nosy dog can get quilled
- Mass Audubon sanctuaries ban dogs while many state parks welcome them
- Crane Beach allows dogs October to March, and snowy owls may visit
- Cape Cod National Seashore beaches in the cold months with a dog
- Sanderlings and sea ducks on state beaches once DCR's dog ban ends
- Snowy owls and sea ducks at Plum Island's Lot 1 boardwalk
- Blue Jays that mimic hawk calls
- Blue-green stained wood from the Chlorociboria fungus
- Ocean-effect snow on Cape Cod and the coast
- The Barred Owl's who-cooks-for-you call
- Fishers: not cats, and not the night scream
- Polypody ferns on boulders and rocky slopes
- Purple Sandpipers on winter rocks and jetties
- Roxbury Puddingstone, the Massachusetts state rock
- The Orion Nebula in Orion's Sword
January
- Beaver signs: chewed stumps and pale wood chips along pond edges
- Why lichen turns bright green after rain
- Why you can see the moon in the daytime sky
- Sundogs and sun halos: how ice crystals bend sunlight
- Crepuscular rays: sunbeams fanning out near sunrise and sunset
- How fallen leaves turn back into soil over the winter
- Stone walls in New England woods and the farms they once edged
- Kettle holes: ponds and hollows left by melting glacial ice
- Why robins travel in fruit-eating flocks in fall and winter
- Wild turkey flocks in fall: hens and broods joining forces
- Starling flocks twisting in unison: why they fly as one shape
- Goldenrod ball galls in winter, and the fly larva living inside
- Great horned owl duets: pairs hooting back and forth in late winter
- Winterberry holly: red berries on bare branches in wet ground
- Turkey tail fungus on fallen logs through the winter
- Hoarfrost: ice crystals growing on twigs, wires and weed stems
- Reading animal tracks in snow by the pattern of the whole trail
- Why fresh snow makes everything so quiet
- Snow fleas: the hopping specks on melting snow are springtails
- Ice needles: frost columns that grow up out of bare wet ground
- How wood frogs freeze solid in winter and come back in spring
- Mantis egg cases on winter twigs
- Identifying trees by their bark in winter
- The chickadee's two-note whistle in late winter
- How the sunset point moves along the horizon through the year
- Why some beech and oak trees keep their dead leaves all winter
- Crows flying to a shared winter roost before sunset
- Jelly fungi like witch's butter that swell with rain and shrivel dry
- The Pleiades, Taurus and Orion return to the early evening sky
- Why sound carries so far on cold, clear, calm nights
- Dark-eyed juncos: the gray winter bird under the feeder
- Squirrel dreys: the leaf nests that show up in bare trees
- The Big Dipper never sets from eastern Massachusetts
- Why there is frost when the air never dropped below freezing
- Groundwater seeps: the patches of woods that never freeze
- Black knot on cherry trees: the black lumps are a fungus
- Small tan moths at outdoor lights on mild November to January nights
- Artist's conk: the shelf fungus you can draw on
- Crow or raven: how to tell them apart by the tail
- Bullfrog tadpoles that spend the winter under the ice
- How honey bees survive winter by huddling and shivering
- Why coyotes howl more in late winter
- Hemlock groves in winter: less snow, less light, and deer shelter
- Bark beetle galleries: the patterns carved under loose bark
- Clubmoss: tiny evergreen forests on the winter woodland floor
- Meadow vole runways hidden under matted grass
- Golden-crowned kinglets in the pines from fall into winter
- The Andromeda Galaxy in the evening sky
- Glacial erratics: lone boulders the ice sheet left behind
- Sumac fruit cones: red winter food for birds
- Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks at bird feeders
- Nor'easters: named for the wind, not the path
- Red squirrel cone piles under the pines
- Winter finch irruptions and the forecast that predicts them
- Why chimney smoke spreads flat on calm cold mornings
- Christmas fern: the fern that stays green all winter
- Counting a young white pine's age by its branch whorls
- Harbor and gray seals resting on the Massachusetts coast
- Teaberry, the wintergreen with red berries
- How woodchucks hibernate underground
- Cattail seed heads and their winter fluff
- Your own shadow by full moonlight
- Graupel: how to tell snow pellets from sleet and hail
- Why frost lasts longest on the north side
- Cedar waxwing flocks at winter fruit
- Giant silk moth cocoons on bare twigs
- River otter latrines and slides
- Birch polypore, the bracket fungus of birch
- How to read tree rings on a cut stump
- Pileated woodpecker holes in dead trees
- Northern lights on a strong geomagnetic storm night
- Where chipmunks spend the winter
- Red rose hips on wild rose canes
- How to find low pressure with your back to the wind
- Opposite buds and the MAD Cap Horse twig test
- Sea ducks on the winter ocean
- Red-tailed hawks on roadside poles and trees
- Deer or rabbit: telling who nipped a twig
- Border ice along the edges of a stream
- Why big rhododendron leaves roll up in the cold
- What a jet contrail says about the air up high
- Snow buntings: Arctic songbirds on winter beaches and fields
- Garden spider egg sacs that can last through winter
- British soldier lichen and its bright red caps
- Cedar-apple rust galls on red cedar and juniper
- Eastern tent caterpillar egg bands on winter twigs
- The twinkle test: how to tell a planet from a star
- How vernal pools fill back up after a dry summer
- Glaze ice: what freezing rain does to twigs and wires
- Why deer ticks stay active after frost
- Old man's beard lichen and its stretchy inner cord
- Owl pellets and whitewash: signs of an owl roost
- Hemlock woolly adelgid: the white wool on hemlock twigs
- Western conifer seed bug: the leaf-footed bug on your window
- Mice in birdhouses and old bird nests in winter
- Partridgeberry: the red berry made from two flowers
- The moon illusion: why the rising moon looks so big
- Carolina wren song: the tea-kettle bird that sings all year
- Red fox mousing: the listening leap onto hidden prey
- Tinder conk: the gray hoof fungus on birch and beech
- Pits and mounds: how uprooted trees shape the forest floor
- Why snow can fall when it is above freezing
- Red-osier and silky dogwood: colored stems after leaf fall
- Earthshine: the faint glow on a crescent Moon's dark side
- Eskers: winding ridges left by glacial meltwater rivers
- Frost cracks and frost ribs on tree trunks
- Northern short-tailed shrews in winter
- How pond turtles survive the winter under the ice
- Brown creeper: the bird that climbs trunks from the bottom up
- Drumlins: smooth oval hills shaped by glacial ice
- Winter stoneflies: insects that emerge from brooks in the cold
- American tree sparrows: the rusty-capped sparrow of winter
- Winter rosettes: plants that wait out the cold flat on the ground
- Deer beds: oval resting spots in leaves and snow
- Horned and gouty oak galls on bare oak twigs
- How to spot satellites crossing the sky after dusk
- White-breasted nuthatch: the bird that climbs down trees headfirst
- Bald eagles at open water in winter
- Winter catkins on hazel, alder, birch, and hophornbeam
- Sycamore and London planetree seed balls in winter
- Willow pinecone galls on bare willow twigs
- Eastern bluebirds that stay through the winter
- Bumblebee queens dormant underground in winter
- Muskrat push-ups: plant mounds on marsh ice
- Why frozen ponds ping, chirp and growl
- Where red-backed salamanders spend the winter
- Shed deer antlers on the winter forest floor
- Bagworm bags on arborvitae, juniper and spruce
- Lichens on gravestones and old stone walls
- Snowflake shapes on a dark sleeve
- Wolf trees: old open-grown giants inside young woods
- Weasels in winter white and their tracks in snow
- Why static shocks come back every winter
- Sirius, the brightest star, found by following Orion's belt
- Ripples on icicles
- Tell pines apart by counting needles in a bundle
- Split gill fungus, the fan that shrivels and revives
- Red fox calls on winter nights
- Sun pillars: a column of light above the low sun
- Why shadows on snow look blue
- Downy or hairy woodpecker: how to tell them apart
- Witches' brooms: dense twig clusters on tree branches
- How daylight speeds up after the winter solstice
- Beech bark disease: white fluff and craters on beech trunks
- Chaga: the black, burnt-looking fungus lump on birch trunks
- How ducks and geese stand on ice without freezing their feet
- Snow that squeaks underfoot on the coldest mornings
- Why many Massachusetts beaches lose sand in winter
- Why the winter full moon rides so high in the sky
- Earth's shadow and the Belt of Venus after sunset
- Winter fireflies: the firefly that spends winter on tree bark
- Trout fishing in Massachusetts stays open all year
- Life jackets for paddlers from September 15 to May 15
- Porcupines cannot throw quills, but a nosy dog can get quilled
- Mass Audubon sanctuaries ban dogs while many state parks welcome them
- Crane Beach allows dogs October to March, and snowy owls may visit
- Cape Cod National Seashore beaches in the cold months with a dog
- Sanderlings and sea ducks on state beaches once DCR's dog ban ends
- Snowy owls and sea ducks at Plum Island's Lot 1 boardwalk
- Black bears in their winter dens in Massachusetts
- Blue Jays that mimic hawk calls
- Blue-green stained wood from the Chlorociboria fungus
- Birch seeds and catkin scales on the snow
- Ocean-effect snow on Cape Cod and the coast
- The Barred Owl's who-cooks-for-you call
- Fishers: not cats, and not the night scream
- Polypody ferns on boulders and rocky slopes
- Purple Sandpipers on winter rocks and jetties
- Roxbury Puddingstone, the Massachusetts state rock
- The Orion Nebula in Orion's Sword
February
- Beaver signs: chewed stumps and pale wood chips along pond edges
- Why lichen turns bright green after rain
- Skunk cabbage: the early spring flower that warms itself
- Why you can see the moon in the daytime sky
- Sundogs and sun halos: how ice crystals bend sunlight
- Crepuscular rays: sunbeams fanning out near sunrise and sunset
- Big night: spotted salamanders crossing roads in the spring rain
- How fallen leaves turn back into soil over the winter
- Stone walls in New England woods and the farms they once edged
- Kettle holes: ponds and hollows left by melting glacial ice
- Why robins travel in fruit-eating flocks in fall and winter
- Wild turkey flocks in fall: hens and broods joining forces
- Goldenrod ball galls in winter, and the fly larva living inside
- Great horned owl duets: pairs hooting back and forth in late winter
- Turkey tail fungus on fallen logs through the winter
- Hoarfrost: ice crystals growing on twigs, wires and weed stems
- Reading animal tracks in snow by the pattern of the whole trail
- Why fresh snow makes everything so quiet
- Snow fleas: the hopping specks on melting snow are springtails
- Ice needles: frost columns that grow up out of bare wet ground
- How wood frogs freeze solid in winter and come back in spring
- Mantis egg cases on winter twigs
- Identifying trees by their bark in winter
- The chickadee's two-note whistle in late winter
- Why skunks are out on the first mild nights of late winter
- How the sunset point moves along the horizon through the year
- Why some beech and oak trees keep their dead leaves all winter
- Crows flying to a shared winter roost before sunset
- Jelly fungi like witch's butter that swell with rain and shrivel dry
- Why sound carries so far on cold, clear, calm nights
- Dark-eyed juncos: the gray winter bird under the feeder
- Squirrel dreys: the leaf nests that show up in bare trees
- The Big Dipper never sets from eastern Massachusetts
- Why there is frost when the air never dropped below freezing
- Groundwater seeps: the patches of woods that never freeze
- Black knot on cherry trees: the black lumps are a fungus
- Artist's conk: the shelf fungus you can draw on
- Crow or raven: how to tell them apart by the tail
- Bullfrog tadpoles that spend the winter under the ice
- How honey bees survive winter by huddling and shivering
- Why coyotes howl more in late winter
- Hemlock groves in winter: less snow, less light, and deer shelter
- Bark beetle galleries: the patterns carved under loose bark
- Clubmoss: tiny evergreen forests on the winter woodland floor
- Meadow vole runways hidden under matted grass
- Golden-crowned kinglets in the pines from fall into winter
- Glacial erratics: lone boulders the ice sheet left behind
- Sumac fruit cones: red winter food for birds
- Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks at bird feeders
- Nor'easters: named for the wind, not the path
- Red squirrel cone piles under the pines
- Winter finch irruptions and the forecast that predicts them
- Why chimney smoke spreads flat on calm cold mornings
- Christmas fern: the fern that stays green all winter
- Counting a young white pine's age by its branch whorls
- Harbor and gray seals resting on the Massachusetts coast
- Teaberry, the wintergreen with red berries
- Cattail seed heads and their winter fluff
- Your own shadow by full moonlight
- Graupel: how to tell snow pellets from sleet and hail
- Why frost lasts longest on the north side
- Cedar waxwing flocks at winter fruit
- Giant silk moth cocoons on bare twigs
- River otter latrines and slides
- Birch polypore, the bracket fungus of birch
- How to read tree rings on a cut stump
- Pileated woodpecker holes in dead trees
- Northern lights on a strong geomagnetic storm night
- Where chipmunks spend the winter
- Red rose hips on wild rose canes
- How to find low pressure with your back to the wind
- Opposite buds and the MAD Cap Horse twig test
- Sea ducks on the winter ocean
- Red-tailed hawks on roadside poles and trees
- Deer or rabbit: telling who nipped a twig
- Border ice along the edges of a stream
- Why big rhododendron leaves roll up in the cold
- What a jet contrail says about the air up high
- Snow buntings: Arctic songbirds on winter beaches and fields
- Garden spider egg sacs that can last through winter
- British soldier lichen and its bright red caps
- Cedar-apple rust galls on red cedar and juniper
- Eastern tent caterpillar egg bands on winter twigs
- The twinkle test: how to tell a planet from a star
- How vernal pools fill back up after a dry summer
- Glaze ice: what freezing rain does to twigs and wires
- Why deer ticks stay active after frost
- Old man's beard lichen and its stretchy inner cord
- Owl pellets and whitewash: signs of an owl roost
- Hemlock woolly adelgid: the white wool on hemlock twigs
- Western conifer seed bug: the leaf-footed bug on your window
- Mice in birdhouses and old bird nests in winter
- Partridgeberry: the red berry made from two flowers
- The moon illusion: why the rising moon looks so big
- Carolina wren song: the tea-kettle bird that sings all year
- Red fox mousing: the listening leap onto hidden prey
- Tinder conk: the gray hoof fungus on birch and beech
- Pits and mounds: how uprooted trees shape the forest floor
- Why snow can fall when it is above freezing
- Red-osier and silky dogwood: colored stems after leaf fall
- Earthshine: the faint glow on a crescent Moon's dark side
- Eskers: winding ridges left by glacial meltwater rivers
- Frost cracks and frost ribs on tree trunks
- Northern short-tailed shrews in winter
- How pond turtles survive the winter under the ice
- Brown creeper: the bird that climbs trunks from the bottom up
- Drumlins: smooth oval hills shaped by glacial ice
- Winter stoneflies: insects that emerge from brooks in the cold
- American tree sparrows: the rusty-capped sparrow of winter
- Winter rosettes: plants that wait out the cold flat on the ground
- Deer beds: oval resting spots in leaves and snow
- Horned and gouty oak galls on bare oak twigs
- How to spot satellites crossing the sky after dusk
- White-breasted nuthatch: the bird that climbs down trees headfirst
- Bald eagles at open water in winter
- Winter catkins on hazel, alder, birch, and hophornbeam
- Sycamore and London planetree seed balls in winter
- Willow pinecone galls on bare willow twigs
- Eastern bluebirds that stay through the winter
- Bumblebee queens dormant underground in winter
- Muskrat push-ups: plant mounds on marsh ice
- Why frozen ponds ping, chirp and growl
- Where red-backed salamanders spend the winter
- Gray squirrel mating chases in late winter
- Shed deer antlers on the winter forest floor
- Bagworm bags on arborvitae, juniper and spruce
- Lichens on gravestones and old stone walls
- Snowflake shapes on a dark sleeve
- Wolf trees: old open-grown giants inside young woods
- Weasels in winter white and their tracks in snow
- Why static shocks come back every winter
- Sirius, the brightest star, found by following Orion's belt
- Ripples on icicles
- Tell pines apart by counting needles in a bundle
- Split gill fungus, the fan that shrivels and revives
- Red fox calls on winter nights
- Sun pillars: a column of light above the low sun
- Why shadows on snow look blue
- Downy or hairy woodpecker: how to tell them apart
- Witches' brooms: dense twig clusters on tree branches
- How daylight speeds up after the winter solstice
- Beech bark disease: white fluff and craters on beech trunks
- Chaga: the black, burnt-looking fungus lump on birch trunks
- How ducks and geese stand on ice without freezing their feet
- Snow that squeaks underfoot on the coldest mornings
- Why many Massachusetts beaches lose sand in winter
- Earth's shadow and the Belt of Venus after sunset
- How freezing nights and thawing days make maple sap run
- Purple and black streaks in beach sand after winter storms
- Winter fireflies: the firefly that spends winter on tree bark
- Trout fishing in Massachusetts stays open all year
- Life jackets for paddlers from September 15 to May 15
- Porcupines cannot throw quills, but a nosy dog can get quilled
- Mass Audubon sanctuaries ban dogs while many state parks welcome them
- Crane Beach allows dogs October to March, and snowy owls may visit
- Cape Cod National Seashore beaches in the cold months with a dog
- Sanderlings and sea ducks on state beaches once DCR's dog ban ends
- Snowy owls and sea ducks at Plum Island's Lot 1 boardwalk
- Winter waterfowl on the Turners Falls power canal
- Black bears in their winter dens in Massachusetts
- Blue Jays that mimic hawk calls
- Blue-green stained wood from the Chlorociboria fungus
- Birch seeds and catkin scales on the snow
- Ocean-effect snow on Cape Cod and the coast
- The Barred Owl's who-cooks-for-you call
- Fishers: not cats, and not the night scream
- Polypody ferns on boulders and rocky slopes
- Purple Sandpipers on winter rocks and jetties
- Roxbury Puddingstone, the Massachusetts state rock
- The Orion Nebula in Orion's Sword
March
- Beaver signs: chewed stumps and pale wood chips along pond edges
- Why lichen turns bright green after rain
- Skunk cabbage: the early spring flower that warms itself
- Why you can see the moon in the daytime sky
- Sundogs and sun halos: how ice crystals bend sunlight
- Crepuscular rays: sunbeams fanning out near sunrise and sunset
- Big night: spotted salamanders crossing roads in the spring rain
- Spring peepers: the tiny frogs behind the spring wetland chorus
- How fallen leaves turn back into soil over the winter
- Stone walls in New England woods and the farms they once edged
- Kettle holes: ponds and hollows left by melting glacial ice
- Goldenrod ball galls in winter, and the fly larva living inside
- Great horned owl duets: pairs hooting back and forth in late winter
- Turkey tail fungus on fallen logs through the winter
- Reading animal tracks in snow by the pattern of the whole trail
- Why fresh snow makes everything so quiet
- Snow fleas: the hopping specks on melting snow are springtails
- Ice needles: frost columns that grow up out of bare wet ground
- Mantis egg cases on winter twigs
- Identifying trees by their bark in winter
- The chickadee's two-note whistle in late winter
- Mud season in Massachusetts: why spring ground turns to mud
- Why skunks are out on the first mild nights of late winter
- Fairy shrimp swimming upside down in spring woodland pools
- How the sunset point moves along the horizon through the year
- Why some beech and oak trees keep their dead leaves all winter
- Jelly fungi like witch's butter that swell with rain and shrivel dry
- Why sound carries so far on cold, clear, calm nights
- Dark-eyed juncos: the gray winter bird under the feeder
- Squirrel dreys: the leaf nests that show up in bare trees
- The Big Dipper never sets from eastern Massachusetts
- Why there is frost when the air never dropped below freezing
- Groundwater seeps: the patches of woods that never freeze
- Black knot on cherry trees: the black lumps are a fungus
- Artist's conk: the shelf fungus you can draw on
- Crow or raven: how to tell them apart by the tail
- Bullfrog tadpoles that spend the winter under the ice
- How honey bees survive winter by huddling and shivering
- Why coyotes howl more in late winter
- Hemlock groves in winter: less snow, less light, and deer shelter
- Bark beetle galleries: the patterns carved under loose bark
- Clubmoss: tiny evergreen forests on the winter woodland floor
- Meadow vole runways hidden under matted grass
- Golden-crowned kinglets in the pines from fall into winter
- Glacial erratics: lone boulders the ice sheet left behind
- Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks at bird feeders
- Nor'easters: named for the wind, not the path
- Red squirrel cone piles under the pines
- Why chimney smoke spreads flat on calm cold mornings
- Red-spotted newts in cold-weather ponds
- Christmas fern: the fern that stays green all winter
- Counting a young white pine's age by its branch whorls
- Harbor and gray seals resting on the Massachusetts coast
- Teaberry, the wintergreen with red berries
- Cattail seed heads and their winter fluff
- Your own shadow by full moonlight
- Graupel: how to tell snow pellets from sleet and hail
- Why frost lasts longest on the north side
- Cedar waxwing flocks at winter fruit
- Giant silk moth cocoons on bare twigs
- River otter latrines and slides
- Birch polypore, the bracket fungus of birch
- How to read tree rings on a cut stump
- Pileated woodpecker holes in dead trees
- Why dry moss opens up when it gets wet
- Northern lights on a strong geomagnetic storm night
- How to find low pressure with your back to the wind
- Opposite buds and the MAD Cap Horse twig test
- Sea ducks on the winter ocean
- Red-tailed hawks on roadside poles and trees
- Deer or rabbit: telling who nipped a twig
- Why big rhododendron leaves roll up in the cold
- What a jet contrail says about the air up high
- British soldier lichen and its bright red caps
- Cedar-apple rust galls on red cedar and juniper
- Eastern tent caterpillar egg bands on winter twigs
- The twinkle test: how to tell a planet from a star
- How vernal pools fill back up after a dry summer
- Glaze ice: what freezing rain does to twigs and wires
- Why deer ticks stay active after frost
- Old man's beard lichen and its stretchy inner cord
- Owl pellets and whitewash: signs of an owl roost
- Hemlock woolly adelgid: the white wool on hemlock twigs
- Western conifer seed bug: the leaf-footed bug on your window
- Mice in birdhouses and old bird nests in winter
- Partridgeberry: the red berry made from two flowers
- The moon illusion: why the rising moon looks so big
- Carolina wren song: the tea-kettle bird that sings all year
- Red fox mousing: the listening leap onto hidden prey
- Tinder conk: the gray hoof fungus on birch and beech
- Pits and mounds: how uprooted trees shape the forest floor
- Why snow can fall when it is above freezing
- Red-osier and silky dogwood: colored stems after leaf fall
- Earthshine: the faint glow on a crescent Moon's dark side
- Eskers: winding ridges left by glacial meltwater rivers
- Frost cracks and frost ribs on tree trunks
- Northern short-tailed shrews in winter
- Brown creeper: the bird that climbs trunks from the bottom up
- Drumlins: smooth oval hills shaped by glacial ice
- Winter stoneflies: insects that emerge from brooks in the cold
- American tree sparrows: the rusty-capped sparrow of winter
- Winter rosettes: plants that wait out the cold flat on the ground
- Deer beds: oval resting spots in leaves and snow
- Horned and gouty oak galls on bare oak twigs
- How to spot satellites crossing the sky after dusk
- White-breasted nuthatch: the bird that climbs down trees headfirst
- Winter catkins on hazel, alder, birch, and hophornbeam
- Sycamore and London planetree seed balls in winter
- Willow pinecone galls on bare willow twigs
- Bumblebee queens dormant underground in winter
- Shed deer antlers on the winter forest floor
- Bagworm bags on arborvitae, juniper and spruce
- Lichens on gravestones and old stone walls
- Snowflake shapes on a dark sleeve
- Wolf trees: old open-grown giants inside young woods
- Why static shocks come back every winter
- Sirius, the brightest star, found by following Orion's belt
- Ripples on icicles
- Tell pines apart by counting needles in a bundle
- Split gill fungus, the fan that shrivels and revives
- Sun pillars: a column of light above the low sun
- Why shadows on snow look blue
- Downy or hairy woodpecker: how to tell them apart
- Witches' brooms: dense twig clusters on tree branches
- How daylight speeds up after the winter solstice
- Beech bark disease: white fluff and craters on beech trunks
- Chaga: the black, burnt-looking fungus lump on birch trunks
- How ducks and geese stand on ice without freezing their feet
- Why many Massachusetts beaches lose sand in winter
- Earth's shadow and the Belt of Venus after sunset
- How freezing nights and thawing days make maple sap run
- Winter fireflies: the firefly that spends winter on tree bark
- Why woodpeckers drum on trees and gutters in spring
- Trout fishing in Massachusetts stays open all year
- MassWildlife stocks trout each spring and maps every stocking
- Life jackets for paddlers from September 15 to May 15
- Porcupines cannot throw quills, but a nosy dog can get quilled
- Mass Audubon sanctuaries ban dogs while many state parks welcome them
- Crane Beach allows dogs October to March, and snowy owls may visit
- Sanderlings and sea ducks on state beaches once DCR's dog ban ends
- Snowy owls and sea ducks at Plum Island's Lot 1 boardwalk
- Red-winged blackbirds on Broadmoor's marsh boardwalk
- Red-shouldered hawk screams, and the jays that copy them
- Wood frogs quacking at a vernal pool on an accessible trail
- Wood ducks and beaver dams along the Nashua River Rail Trail
- Blue Jays that mimic hawk calls
- Blue-green stained wood from the Chlorociboria fungus
- The Barred Owl's who-cooks-for-you call
- Fishers: not cats, and not the night scream
- Polypody ferns on boulders and rocky slopes
- Purple Sandpipers on winter rocks and jetties
- Roxbury Puddingstone, the Massachusetts state rock
April
- Beaver signs: chewed stumps and pale wood chips along pond edges
- Why lichen turns bright green after rain
- Skunk cabbage: the early spring flower that warms itself
- Why you can see the moon in the daytime sky
- Sundogs and sun halos: how ice crystals bend sunlight
- Crepuscular rays: sunbeams fanning out near sunrise and sunset
- Morning dew and the dew point: why grass is soaked without rain
- Big night: spotted salamanders crossing roads in the spring rain
- Spring peepers: the tiny frogs behind the spring wetland chorus
- How fallen leaves turn back into soil over the winter
- Stone walls in New England woods and the farms they once edged
- Kettle holes: ponds and hollows left by melting glacial ice
- Mud season in Massachusetts: why spring ground turns to mud
- Fairy shrimp swimming upside down in spring woodland pools
- How the sunset point moves along the horizon through the year
- Why some beech and oak trees keep their dead leaves all winter
- Dark-eyed juncos: the gray winter bird under the feeder
- The Big Dipper never sets from eastern Massachusetts
- Why there is frost when the air never dropped below freezing
- Black knot on cherry trees: the black lumps are a fungus
- Crow or raven: how to tell them apart by the tail
- Glacial erratics: lone boulders the ice sheet left behind
- Mourning cloaks: butterflies that winter as adults
- Nor'easters: named for the wind, not the path
- Red squirrel cone piles under the pines
- Counting a young white pine's age by its branch whorls
- Harbor and gray seals resting on the Massachusetts coast
- Your own shadow by full moonlight
- Graupel: how to tell snow pellets from sleet and hail
- How to read tree rings on a cut stump
- Which way a snail shell coils
- Pileated woodpecker holes in dead trees
- Northern lights on a strong geomagnetic storm night
- How to find low pressure with your back to the wind
- What a jet contrail says about the air up high
- British soldier lichen and its bright red caps
- The twinkle test: how to tell a planet from a star
- Old man's beard lichen and its stretchy inner cord
- Owl pellets and whitewash: signs of an owl roost
- Hemlock woolly adelgid: the white wool on hemlock twigs
- Western conifer seed bug: the leaf-footed bug on your window
- Partridgeberry: the red berry made from two flowers
- The moon illusion: why the rising moon looks so big
- Carolina wren song: the tea-kettle bird that sings all year
- Tinder conk: the gray hoof fungus on birch and beech
- Pits and mounds: how uprooted trees shape the forest floor
- Why snow can fall when it is above freezing
- Earthshine: the faint glow on a crescent Moon's dark side
- Eskers: winding ridges left by glacial meltwater rivers
- Brown creeper: the bird that climbs trunks from the bottom up
- Drumlins: smooth oval hills shaped by glacial ice
- How to spot satellites crossing the sky after dusk
- White-breasted nuthatch: the bird that climbs down trees headfirst
- Sycamore and London planetree seed balls in winter
- Lichens on gravestones and old stone walls
- Wolf trees: old open-grown giants inside young woods
- Tell pines apart by counting needles in a bundle
- Split gill fungus, the fan that shrivels and revives
- Sun pillars: a column of light above the low sun
- Downy or hairy woodpecker: how to tell them apart
- Beech bark disease: white fluff and craters on beech trunks
- Chaga: the black, burnt-looking fungus lump on birch trunks
- Earth's shadow and the Belt of Venus after sunset
- Winter fireflies: the firefly that spends winter on tree bark
- Why woodpeckers drum on trees and gutters in spring
- River herring climb fish ladders in spring
- MassWildlife stocks trout each spring and maps every stocking
- Life jackets for paddlers from September 15 to May 15
- Dogs and nesting plovers: why beaches limit dogs from April 1
- Porcupines cannot throw quills, but a nosy dog can get quilled
- Mass Audubon sanctuaries ban dogs while many state parks welcome them
- Spring warblers and songbirds on the Hellcat boardwalk
- Red-winged blackbirds on Broadmoor's marsh boardwalk
- Red-shouldered hawk screams, and the jays that copy them
- The purple martin colony at Long Pasture's accessible trail
- Wood frogs quacking at a vernal pool on an accessible trail
- Wood ducks and beaver dams along the Nashua River Rail Trail
- Blue Jays that mimic hawk calls
- Blue-green stained wood from the Chlorociboria fungus
- Glacial striations on Massachusetts bedrock ledges
- The Barred Owl's who-cooks-for-you call
- Fishers: not cats, and not the night scream
- Polypody ferns on boulders and rocky slopes
- Roxbury Puddingstone, the Massachusetts state rock
May
- How water striders stand on a pond's surface without sinking
- Moths at street lamps and lit shop fronts on warm summer nights
- Luna moths at the porch light, most likely in June
- Big brown bats hunting over yards at dusk in eastern Massachusetts
- Beaver signs: chewed stumps and pale wood chips along pond edges
- Why lichen turns bright green after rain
- Why you can see the moon in the daytime sky
- Sundogs and sun halos: how ice crystals bend sunlight
- Crepuscular rays: sunbeams fanning out near sunrise and sunset
- Morning dew and the dew point: why grass is soaked without rain
- Spring peepers: the tiny frogs behind the spring wetland chorus
- Stone walls in New England woods and the farms they once edged
- Kettle holes: ponds and hollows left by melting glacial ice
- Fairy shrimp swimming upside down in spring woodland pools
- How the sunset point moves along the horizon through the year
- The Big Dipper never sets from eastern Massachusetts
- Black knot on cherry trees: the black lumps are a fungus
- Crow or raven: how to tell them apart by the tail
- Glacial erratics: lone boulders the ice sheet left behind
- Red squirrel cone piles under the pines
- Counting a young white pine's age by its branch whorls
- Your own shadow by full moonlight
- How to read tree rings on a cut stump
- Which way a snail shell coils
- Pileated woodpecker holes in dead trees
- Northern lights on a strong geomagnetic storm night
- How to find low pressure with your back to the wind
- What a jet contrail says about the air up high
- British soldier lichen and its bright red caps
- The twinkle test: how to tell a planet from a star
- Old man's beard lichen and its stretchy inner cord
- Owl pellets and whitewash: signs of an owl roost
- Hemlock woolly adelgid: the white wool on hemlock twigs
- The moon illusion: why the rising moon looks so big
- Carolina wren song: the tea-kettle bird that sings all year
- Tinder conk: the gray hoof fungus on birch and beech
- Pits and mounds: how uprooted trees shape the forest floor
- Earthshine: the faint glow on a crescent Moon's dark side
- Eskers: winding ridges left by glacial meltwater rivers
- Drumlins: smooth oval hills shaped by glacial ice
- How to spot satellites crossing the sky after dusk
- White-breasted nuthatch: the bird that climbs down trees headfirst
- Lichens on gravestones and old stone walls
- Wolf trees: old open-grown giants inside young woods
- Tell pines apart by counting needles in a bundle
- Split gill fungus, the fan that shrivels and revives
- Sun pillars: a column of light above the low sun
- Downy or hairy woodpecker: how to tell them apart
- Chaga: the black, burnt-looking fungus lump on birch trunks
- Earth's shadow and the Belt of Venus after sunset
- River herring climb fish ladders in spring
- Shad pass underwater windows at Connecticut River fishways
- Fallfish build stone-pile nests in Massachusetts streams
- Belted kingfishers rattle along rivers and ponds
- Spotted sandpipers teeter along pond and river shores
- Green herons hide along shaded shores
- Wood duck mothers lead ducklings through shoreline cover
- Bank swallows nest in burrows in sandy riverbanks
- Dogs and nesting plovers: why beaches limit dogs from April 1
- Porcupines cannot throw quills, but a nosy dog can get quilled
- If a skunk sprays your dog, soap alone will not cut it
- Mass Audubon sanctuaries ban dogs while many state parks welcome them
- Azaleas, rhododendrons and mountain laurel in bloom at Maudslay
- Lilac season at the Arnold Arboretum, with leashed dogs
- Spring warblers and songbirds on the Hellcat boardwalk
- May migrant birds at Mount Auburn Cemetery
- The purple martin colony at Long Pasture's accessible trail
- Cornell NestWatch bird boxes along Allens Pond's accessible trail
- Bobolinks nesting beside Wachusett Meadow's accessible trail
- Wood ducks and beaver dams along the Nashua River Rail Trail
- Bobolinks at the Fort River Division's accessible trail
- Blue Jays that mimic hawk calls
- Blue-green stained wood from the Chlorociboria fungus
- Glacial striations on Massachusetts bedrock ledges
- The Barred Owl's who-cooks-for-you call
- Fishers: not cats, and not the night scream
- Roxbury Puddingstone, the Massachusetts state rock
June
- How water striders stand on a pond's surface without sinking
- Moths at street lamps and lit shop fronts on warm summer nights
- Luna moths at the porch light, most likely in June
- Big brown bats hunting over yards at dusk in eastern Massachusetts
- Beaver signs: chewed stumps and pale wood chips along pond edges
- Oak galls: the bumps and balls on oak leaves, and what makes them
- Ghost pipe: the white forest plant with no green, June to September
- Why mushrooms pop up after rain in Massachusetts
- Why lichen turns bright green after rain
- Why you can see the moon in the daytime sky
- Sundogs and sun halos: how ice crystals bend sunlight
- Crepuscular rays: sunbeams fanning out near sunrise and sunset
- Morning dew and the dew point: why grass is soaked without rain
- Red efts: the orange young newts that walk the woods after rain
- Why vernal pools dry up in summer, and why that matters
- Stone walls in New England woods and the farms they once edged
- Kettle holes: ponds and hollows left by melting glacial ice
- Hummingbird moths: clearwing sphinx moths hovering at bee balm
- Slime mold on the mulch after rain: the yellow blob explained
- How the sunset point moves along the horizon through the year
- The Big Dipper never sets from eastern Massachusetts
- Black knot on cherry trees: the black lumps are a fungus
- Crow or raven: how to tell them apart by the tail
- Glacial erratics: lone boulders the ice sheet left behind
- Red squirrel cone piles under the pines
- Counting a young white pine's age by its branch whorls
- Your own shadow by full moonlight
- How to read tree rings on a cut stump
- Which way a snail shell coils
- Pileated woodpecker holes in dead trees
- Northern lights on a strong geomagnetic storm night
- How to find low pressure with your back to the wind
- What a jet contrail says about the air up high
- British soldier lichen and its bright red caps
- The twinkle test: how to tell a planet from a star
- Old man's beard lichen and its stretchy inner cord
- Owl pellets and whitewash: signs of an owl roost
- The moon illusion: why the rising moon looks so big
- Carolina wren song: the tea-kettle bird that sings all year
- Tinder conk: the gray hoof fungus on birch and beech
- Pits and mounds: how uprooted trees shape the forest floor
- Earthshine: the faint glow on a crescent Moon's dark side
- Eskers: winding ridges left by glacial meltwater rivers
- Drumlins: smooth oval hills shaped by glacial ice
- How to spot satellites crossing the sky after dusk
- White-breasted nuthatch: the bird that climbs down trees headfirst
- Lichens on gravestones and old stone walls
- Wolf trees: old open-grown giants inside young woods
- Tell pines apart by counting needles in a bundle
- Split gill fungus, the fan that shrivels and revives
- Sun pillars: a column of light above the low sun
- Downy or hairy woodpecker: how to tell them apart
- Chaga: the black, burnt-looking fungus lump on birch trunks
- Earth's shadow and the Belt of Venus after sunset
- Shad pass underwater windows at Connecticut River fishways
- Male bass guard their nests in pond shallows in June
- Empty dragonfly skins on pond-edge stems
- Belted kingfishers rattle along rivers and ponds
- Spotted sandpipers teeter along pond and river shores
- Green herons hide along shaded shores
- Wood duck mothers lead ducklings through shoreline cover
- Bank swallows nest in burrows in sandy riverbanks
- Dogs and nesting plovers: why beaches limit dogs from April 1
- Porcupines cannot throw quills, but a nosy dog can get quilled
- If a skunk sprays your dog, soap alone will not cut it
- Mass Audubon sanctuaries ban dogs while many state parks welcome them
- Azaleas, rhododendrons and mountain laurel in bloom at Maudslay
- Spring warblers and songbirds on the Hellcat boardwalk
- Hummingbirds at North River's nectar garden
- The purple martin colony at Long Pasture's accessible trail
- Cornell NestWatch bird boxes along Allens Pond's accessible trail
- Bobolinks nesting beside Wachusett Meadow's accessible trail
- Wood ducks and beaver dams along the Nashua River Rail Trail
- Bobolinks at the Fort River Division's accessible trail
- Blue Jays that mimic hawk calls
- Blue-green stained wood from the Chlorociboria fungus
- Glacial striations on Massachusetts bedrock ledges
- Fishers: not cats, and not the night scream
- Roxbury Puddingstone, the Massachusetts state rock
July
- Canada goose families merging into big flocks after the summer molt
- Cicada shells on tree trunks: what the empty brown husks are
- How orb weaver spiders spin a new web after dark
- How water striders stand on a pond's surface without sinking
- Cricket chirps and temperature: why the chorus slows as nights cool
- Moths at street lamps and lit shop fronts on warm summer nights
- Luna moths at the porch light, most likely in June
- Fawns out exploring with their mothers in July and August
- Big brown bats hunting over yards at dusk in eastern Massachusetts
- Beaver signs: chewed stumps and pale wood chips along pond edges
- Oak galls: the bumps and balls on oak leaves, and what makes them
- Ghost pipe: the white forest plant with no green, June to September
- Why mushrooms pop up after rain in Massachusetts
- Why lichen turns bright green after rain
- Why you can see the moon in the daytime sky
- Sundogs and sun halos: how ice crystals bend sunlight
- Crepuscular rays: sunbeams fanning out near sunrise and sunset
- Morning dew and the dew point: why grass is soaked without rain
- Red efts: the orange young newts that walk the woods after rain
- Why vernal pools dry up in summer, and why that matters
- Stone walls in New England woods and the farms they once edged
- Kettle holes: ponds and hollows left by melting glacial ice
- Fall webworm tents on branch tips: the silk nests explained
- Tomato hornworms covered in white wasp cocoons
- Hickory tussock caterpillars: look, but do not touch
- Flying ant day: winged ants swarming after rain in late August
- Milkweed tussock caterpillars eating milkweed leaves in gangs
- Queen Anne's lace curling into bird's nests as it goes to seed
- Hummingbird moths: clearwing sphinx moths hovering at bee balm
- Slime mold on the mulch after rain: the yellow blob explained
- Barn swallows gathering on wires before fall migration
- Bald-faced hornet nests: paper globes in the trees, seen from afar
- Why goldfinches nest in late summer, months after other songbirds
- How the sunset point moves along the horizon through the year
- The Big Dipper never sets from eastern Massachusetts
- Black knot on cherry trees: the black lumps are a fungus
- Crow or raven: how to tell them apart by the tail
- Glacial erratics: lone boulders the ice sheet left behind
- Red squirrel cone piles under the pines
- Counting a young white pine's age by its branch whorls
- Your own shadow by full moonlight
- How to read tree rings on a cut stump
- Which way a snail shell coils
- Pileated woodpecker holes in dead trees
- Northern lights on a strong geomagnetic storm night
- How to find low pressure with your back to the wind
- What a jet contrail says about the air up high
- British soldier lichen and its bright red caps
- The twinkle test: how to tell a planet from a star
- Old man's beard lichen and its stretchy inner cord
- Owl pellets and whitewash: signs of an owl roost
- The moon illusion: why the rising moon looks so big
- Carolina wren song: the tea-kettle bird that sings all year
- Tinder conk: the gray hoof fungus on birch and beech
- Pits and mounds: how uprooted trees shape the forest floor
- Earthshine: the faint glow on a crescent Moon's dark side
- Eskers: winding ridges left by glacial meltwater rivers
- Drumlins: smooth oval hills shaped by glacial ice
- How to spot satellites crossing the sky after dusk
- White-breasted nuthatch: the bird that climbs down trees headfirst
- Lichens on gravestones and old stone walls
- Wolf trees: old open-grown giants inside young woods
- Tell pines apart by counting needles in a bundle
- Split gill fungus, the fan that shrivels and revives
- Sun pillars: a column of light above the low sun
- Downy or hairy woodpecker: how to tell them apart
- Chaga: the black, burnt-looking fungus lump on birch trunks
- Earth's shadow and the Belt of Venus after sunset
- Empty dragonfly skins on pond-edge stems
- Belted kingfishers rattle along rivers and ponds
- Spotted sandpipers teeter along pond and river shores
- Green herons hide along shaded shores
- Wood duck mothers lead ducklings through shoreline cover
- Bank swallows nest in burrows in sandy riverbanks
- Keep dogs out of water that looks like pea soup or paint
- Dogs and nesting plovers: why beaches limit dogs from April 1
- Porcupines cannot throw quills, but a nosy dog can get quilled
- If a skunk sprays your dog, soap alone will not cut it
- Mass Audubon sanctuaries ban dogs while many state parks welcome them
- Hummingbirds at North River's nectar garden
- The purple martin colony at Long Pasture's accessible trail
- Cornell NestWatch bird boxes along Allens Pond's accessible trail
- Bobolinks nesting beside Wachusett Meadow's accessible trail
- Bobolinks at the Fort River Division's accessible trail
- Blue Jays that mimic hawk calls
- Blue-green stained wood from the Chlorociboria fungus
- Glacial striations on Massachusetts bedrock ledges
- Fishers: not cats, and not the night scream
- Roxbury Puddingstone, the Massachusetts state rock
August
- Chimney swifts swirling into old chimneys at dusk before migration
- Common nighthawk migration over eastern Massachusetts at sunset
- When ruby-throated hummingbirds leave Massachusetts
- Why goldfinches turn patchy gray-brown in late August and September
- Canada goose families merging into big flocks after the summer molt
- Young eastern screech-owls calling after dark in late summer
- Monarch migration: the late-summer generation that flies to Mexico
- Green darner dragonfly migration through the Northeast
- The late-summer night chorus of crickets and katydids
- Cicada shells on tree trunks: what the empty brown husks are
- Jewelweed seed pods that burst open at a touch
- How orb weaver spiders spin a new web after dark
- How water striders stand on a pond's surface without sinking
- Cricket chirps and temperature: why the chorus slows as nights cool
- Moths at street lamps and lit shop fronts on warm summer nights
- Luna moths at the porch light, most likely in June
- Fawns out exploring with their mothers in July and August
- Big brown bats hunting over yards at dusk in eastern Massachusetts
- Beaver signs: chewed stumps and pale wood chips along pond edges
- Acorn crops, and why a heavy year draws wildlife under the oaks
- Oak galls: the bumps and balls on oak leaves, and what makes them
- Goldenrod in late summer: a crowded table for bees and butterflies
- Ghost pipe: the white forest plant with no green, June to September
- Why mushrooms pop up after rain in Massachusetts
- Next spring's tree buds, already formed at the twig tips by fall
- Milkweed pods splitting open to release silky seeds
- Why lichen turns bright green after rain
- Perseid meteor shower 2026: a dark peak night, August 12 to 13
- Partial solar eclipse from the Boston area on August 12, 2026
- Why you can see the moon in the daytime sky
- Sundogs and sun halos: how ice crystals bend sunlight
- Crepuscular rays: sunbeams fanning out near sunrise and sunset
- Morning dew and the dew point: why grass is soaked without rain
- Dew on spider webs: the morning every web in the yard shows
- Red efts: the orange young newts that walk the woods after rain
- Why vernal pools dry up in summer, and why that matters
- Stone walls in New England woods and the farms they once edged
- Kettle holes: ponds and hollows left by melting glacial ice
- Large milkweed bugs crowding milkweed seed pods in late summer
- Fall webworm tents on branch tips: the silk nests explained
- Snapping turtle hatchlings crossing lawns and roads toward water
- Woodchucks fattening up for hibernation in late summer and fall
- Goldenrod or ragweed: which one causes fall allergies
- Red maples in New England swamps: the first trees to turn in fall
- Giant puffballs in lawns and fields from August to October
- Fall warbler migration through Massachusetts yards and trees
- Tomato hornworms covered in white wasp cocoons
- Hickory tussock caterpillars: look, but do not touch
- Flying ant day: winged ants swarming after rain in late August
- Milkweed tussock caterpillars eating milkweed leaves in gangs
- Daddy longlegs, or harvestmen: not spiders, and not venomous
- Queen Anne's lace curling into bird's nests as it goes to seed
- Hummingbird moths: clearwing sphinx moths hovering at bee balm
- Slime mold on the mulch after rain: the yellow blob explained
- Barn swallows gathering on wires before fall migration
- Bald-faced hornet nests: paper globes in the trees, seen from afar
- Pokeweed berries and purple stems: a look-only plant
- Why goldfinches nest in late summer, months after other songbirds
- Bald cardinals and blue jays at the feeder: molting, not sick
- Why poison ivy turns red so early in fall, and what the red is for
- How the sunset point moves along the horizon through the year
- The Big Dipper never sets from eastern Massachusetts
- Black knot on cherry trees: the black lumps are a fungus
- Crow or raven: how to tell them apart by the tail
- Honey mushrooms: golden clusters at the base of trees in fall
- Glacial erratics: lone boulders the ice sheet left behind
- Red squirrel cone piles under the pines
- Counting a young white pine's age by its branch whorls
- Your own shadow by full moonlight
- How to read tree rings on a cut stump
- Which way a snail shell coils
- Pileated woodpecker holes in dead trees
- Northern lights on a strong geomagnetic storm night
- How to find low pressure with your back to the wind
- What a jet contrail says about the air up high
- British soldier lichen and its bright red caps
- The twinkle test: how to tell a planet from a star
- Old man's beard lichen and its stretchy inner cord
- Owl pellets and whitewash: signs of an owl roost
- The moon illusion: why the rising moon looks so big
- Carolina wren song: the tea-kettle bird that sings all year
- Tinder conk: the gray hoof fungus on birch and beech
- Pits and mounds: how uprooted trees shape the forest floor
- Earthshine: the faint glow on a crescent Moon's dark side
- Eskers: winding ridges left by glacial meltwater rivers
- Drumlins: smooth oval hills shaped by glacial ice
- How to spot satellites crossing the sky after dusk
- White-breasted nuthatch: the bird that climbs down trees headfirst
- Tar spot: the black blotches on maple leaves
- Lichens on gravestones and old stone walls
- Wolf trees: old open-grown giants inside young woods
- Tell pines apart by counting needles in a bundle
- Split gill fungus, the fan that shrivels and revives
- Sun pillars: a column of light above the low sun
- Downy or hairy woodpecker: how to tell them apart
- Chaga: the black, burnt-looking fungus lump on birch trunks
- Earth's shadow and the Belt of Venus after sunset
- Belted kingfishers rattle along rivers and ponds
- Spotted sandpipers teeter along pond and river shores
- Green herons hide along shaded shores
- Keep dogs out of water that looks like pea soup or paint
- Dogs and nesting plovers: why beaches limit dogs from April 1
- Porcupines cannot throw quills, but a nosy dog can get quilled
- Mass Audubon sanctuaries ban dogs while many state parks welcome them
- Hummingbirds at North River's nectar garden
- The purple martin colony at Long Pasture's accessible trail
- Blue Jays that mimic hawk calls
- Blue-green stained wood from the Chlorociboria fungus
- Glacial striations on Massachusetts bedrock ledges
- Fishers: not cats, and not the night scream
- Roxbury Puddingstone, the Massachusetts state rock
September
- Chimney swifts swirling into old chimneys at dusk before migration
- Common nighthawk migration over eastern Massachusetts at sunset
- When ruby-throated hummingbirds leave Massachusetts
- Why goldfinches turn patchy gray-brown in late August and September
- Canada goose families merging into big flocks after the summer molt
- Young eastern screech-owls calling after dark in late summer
- Monarch migration: the late-summer generation that flies to Mexico
- Green darner dragonfly migration through the Northeast
- The late-summer night chorus of crickets and katydids
- Cicada shells on tree trunks: what the empty brown husks are
- Jewelweed seed pods that burst open at a touch
- How orb weaver spiders spin a new web after dark
- How water striders stand on a pond's surface without sinking
- Cricket chirps and temperature: why the chorus slows as nights cool
- Moths at street lamps and lit shop fronts on warm summer nights
- Goldenrod and asters: late flowers that feed bumble bees and monarchs
- Big brown bats hunting over yards at dusk in eastern Massachusetts
- Why gray squirrels bury nuts one by one each fall
- Beaver signs: chewed stumps and pale wood chips along pond edges
- Acorn crops, and why a heavy year draws wildlife under the oaks
- Oak galls: the bumps and balls on oak leaves, and what makes them
- Goldenrod in late summer: a crowded table for bees and butterflies
- Ghost pipe: the white forest plant with no green, June to September
- Why mushrooms pop up after rain in Massachusetts
- Next spring's tree buds, already formed at the twig tips by fall
- Milkweed pods splitting open to release silky seeds
- Why leaves change color in fall: the yellows were there all along
- Why lichen turns bright green after rain
- Why you can see the moon in the daytime sky
- Sundogs and sun halos: how ice crystals bend sunlight
- Crepuscular rays: sunbeams fanning out near sunrise and sunset
- First frost in eastern Massachusetts, and what it shows
- Morning dew and the dew point: why grass is soaked without rain
- Dew on spider webs: the morning every web in the yard shows
- Red efts: the orange young newts that walk the woods after rain
- Why vernal pools dry up in summer, and why that matters
- How fallen leaves turn back into soil over the winter
- Stone walls in New England woods and the farms they once edged
- Kettle holes: ponds and hollows left by melting glacial ice
- Woolly bear caterpillars crossing roads in fall
- Large milkweed bugs crowding milkweed seed pods in late summer
- Fall webworm tents on branch tips: the silk nests explained
- Praying mantis season: full-grown mantises and their egg cases
- Why a cricket starts chirping inside the house in September
- Ballooning spiders: young spiders flying away on silk threads
- Snapping turtle hatchlings crossing lawns and roads toward water
- Chipmunks stuffing their cheeks to stock a winter larder
- Woodchucks fattening up for hibernation in late summer and fall
- Goldenrod or ragweed: which one causes fall allergies
- Virginia creeper and poison ivy: the first vines to turn red in fall
- Red maples in New England swamps: the first trees to turn in fall
- Valley fog: why low fields fill with fog on calm fall mornings
- Giant puffballs in lawns and fields from August to October
- Wild fox grapes ripening along New England wood edges in September
- Broad-winged hawk migration: kettles over New England in September
- Fall warbler migration through Massachusetts yards and trees
- White-throated sparrows returning to Massachusetts yards in fall
- Blue jays carrying and hiding acorns in fall
- Wild turkey flocks in fall: hens and broods joining forces
- Starling flocks twisting in unison: why they fly as one shape
- Buck rubs on young trees: what they are and when they appear
- Tomato hornworms covered in white wasp cocoons
- Hickory tussock caterpillars: look, but do not touch
- Flying ant day: winged ants swarming after rain in late August
- Milkweed tussock caterpillars eating milkweed leaves in gangs
- Daddy longlegs, or harvestmen: not spiders, and not venomous
- Queen Anne's lace curling into bird's nests as it goes to seed
- Slime mold on the mulch after rain: the yellow blob explained
- Barn swallows gathering on wires before fall migration
- Bald-faced hornet nests: paper globes in the trees, seen from afar
- Pokeweed berries and purple stems: a look-only plant
- Why goldfinches nest in late summer, months after other songbirds
- Bald cardinals and blue jays at the feeder: molting, not sick
- Why poison ivy turns red so early in fall, and what the red is for
- How the sunset point moves along the horizon through the year
- Why spring peepers call again in autumn from dry woods
- Why sound carries so far on cold, clear, calm nights
- Why your noon shadow more than doubles from September to December
- Hen of the woods at the base of the same oak year after year
- Hearing migrating songbirds call overhead at night
- Where the yard's bats go in September and October
- The Big Dipper never sets from eastern Massachusetts
- Black knot on cherry trees: the black lumps are a fungus
- Crow or raven: how to tell them apart by the tail
- Asian lady beetles gathering on sunny house walls in fall
- Honey mushrooms: golden clusters at the base of trees in fall
- Staghorn sumac: scarlet fall leaves and red fruit into winter
- Woolly alder aphids: the white fluff drifting through the air in fall
- The Andromeda Galaxy in the evening sky
- Glacial erratics: lone boulders the ice sheet left behind
- Shaggy mane mushrooms that dissolve into ink
- Sumac fruit cones: red winter food for birds
- Yellowjackets at picnics and fallen fruit in fall
- Nor'easters: named for the wind, not the path
- Red squirrel cone piles under the pines
- White oak acorns that sprout a root in fall
- The Summer Triangle in the autumn evening sky
- Young red foxes leave home in autumn
- Cluster flies on sunny walls in autumn
- Counting a young white pine's age by its branch whorls
- Your own shadow by full moonlight
- How to read tree rings on a cut stump
- How fast the days get shorter in fall
- Which way a snail shell coils
- Pileated woodpecker holes in dead trees
- Northern lights on a strong geomagnetic storm night
- How to find low pressure with your back to the wind
- What a jet contrail says about the air up high
- British soldier lichen and its bright red caps
- The twinkle test: how to tell a planet from a star
- Old man's beard lichen and its stretchy inner cord
- Owl pellets and whitewash: signs of an owl roost
- Western conifer seed bug: the leaf-footed bug on your window
- Hitchhiker seeds: burdock, beggarticks and tick-trefoil
- The moon illusion: why the rising moon looks so big
- Carolina wren song: the tea-kettle bird that sings all year
- Tinder conk: the gray hoof fungus on birch and beech
- Pits and mounds: how uprooted trees shape the forest floor
- Earthshine: the faint glow on a crescent Moon's dark side
- Eskers: winding ridges left by glacial meltwater rivers
- Beechdrops: the leafless plant that lives under beech trees
- Brown creeper: the bird that climbs trunks from the bottom up
- Drumlins: smooth oval hills shaped by glacial ice
- How to spot satellites crossing the sky after dusk
- White-breasted nuthatch: the bird that climbs down trees headfirst
- Tar spot: the black blotches on maple leaves
- Lichens on gravestones and old stone walls
- Wolf trees: old open-grown giants inside young woods
- Tell pines apart by counting needles in a bundle
- Split gill fungus, the fan that shrivels and revives
- Sun pillars: a column of light above the low sun
- Downy or hairy woodpecker: how to tell them apart
- Chaga: the black, burnt-looking fungus lump on birch trunks
- Earth's shadow and the Belt of Venus after sunset
- Hatchery trout are stocked in Massachusetts waters each fall
- Belted kingfishers rattle along rivers and ponds
- Spotted sandpipers teeter along pond and river shores
- Green herons hide along shaded shores
- Keep dogs out of water that looks like pea soup or paint
- Dogs and nesting plovers: why beaches limit dogs from April 1
- Porcupines cannot throw quills, but a nosy dog can get quilled
- Mass Audubon sanctuaries ban dogs while many state parks welcome them
- Mount Tom hawk watching with a leashed dog
- Blue Jays that mimic hawk calls
- Blue-green stained wood from the Chlorociboria fungus
- Glacial striations on Massachusetts bedrock ledges
- The Barred Owl's who-cooks-for-you call
- Fishers: not cats, and not the night scream
- Roxbury Puddingstone, the Massachusetts state rock
October
- Canada goose families merging into big flocks after the summer molt
- Green darner dragonfly migration through the Northeast
- Jewelweed seed pods that burst open at a touch
- How orb weaver spiders spin a new web after dark
- Cricket chirps and temperature: why the chorus slows as nights cool
- Goldenrod and asters: late flowers that feed bumble bees and monarchs
- Why gray squirrels bury nuts one by one each fall
- Beaver signs: chewed stumps and pale wood chips along pond edges
- Acorn crops, and why a heavy year draws wildlife under the oaks
- Oak galls: the bumps and balls on oak leaves, and what makes them
- Goldenrod in late summer: a crowded table for bees and butterflies
- Why mushrooms pop up after rain in Massachusetts
- Next spring's tree buds, already formed at the twig tips by fall
- Milkweed pods splitting open to release silky seeds
- Why leaves change color in fall: the yellows were there all along
- Why lichen turns bright green after rain
- Why you can see the moon in the daytime sky
- Sundogs and sun halos: how ice crystals bend sunlight
- Crepuscular rays: sunbeams fanning out near sunrise and sunset
- First frost in eastern Massachusetts, and what it shows
- Morning dew and the dew point: why grass is soaked without rain
- Dew on spider webs: the morning every web in the yard shows
- Why vernal pools dry up in summer, and why that matters
- How fallen leaves turn back into soil over the winter
- Stone walls in New England woods and the farms they once edged
- Kettle holes: ponds and hollows left by melting glacial ice
- Woolly bear caterpillars crossing roads in fall
- Fall webworm tents on branch tips: the silk nests explained
- Praying mantis season: full-grown mantises and their egg cases
- Why a cricket starts chirping inside the house in September
- Ballooning spiders: young spiders flying away on silk threads
- Snapping turtle hatchlings crossing lawns and roads toward water
- Chipmunks stuffing their cheeks to stock a winter larder
- Woodchucks fattening up for hibernation in late summer and fall
- Goldenrod or ragweed: which one causes fall allergies
- Virginia creeper and poison ivy: the first vines to turn red in fall
- Red maples in New England swamps: the first trees to turn in fall
- Valley fog: why low fields fill with fog on calm fall mornings
- Giant puffballs in lawns and fields from August to October
- Fall warbler migration through Massachusetts yards and trees
- White-throated sparrows returning to Massachusetts yards in fall
- Blue jays carrying and hiding acorns in fall
- Why robins travel in fruit-eating flocks in fall and winter
- Wild turkey flocks in fall: hens and broods joining forces
- Starling flocks twisting in unison: why they fly as one shape
- Buck rubs on young trees: what they are and when they appear
- Daddy longlegs, or harvestmen: not spiders, and not venomous
- Bald-faced hornet nests: paper globes in the trees, seen from afar
- Pokeweed berries and purple stems: a look-only plant
- Why poison ivy turns red so early in fall, and what the red is for
- Witch hazel: the shrub that blooms from October into December
- Deer rut peak: why deer move by day in the first half of November
- Ducks arriving at Great Meadows in Concord through late autumn
- Fall pond turnover: why ponds mix from top to bottom in autumn
- Painted turtles basking on logs on bright autumn afternoons
- What the woods reveal after the leaves come down
- Larch, or tamarack: the conifer that turns gold and drops its needles
- How the sunset point moves along the horizon through the year
- Crows flying to a shared winter roost before sunset
- Why spring peepers call again in autumn from dry woods
- Jelly fungi like witch's butter that swell with rain and shrivel dry
- White-footed deermice moving indoors in autumn with their seed caches
- Orionid meteor shower 2026: peak night of October 21 and the moon
- Why sound carries so far on cold, clear, calm nights
- Why the first ice forms in puddles and buckets before ponds
- Red-backed salamanders under logs: salamanders that never go to water
- Why your noon shadow more than doubles from September to December
- Hen of the woods at the base of the same oak year after year
- Why brooks recover in autumn once the trees stop drinking
- Hearing migrating songbirds call overhead at night
- Where the yard's bats go in September and October
- Dark-eyed juncos: the gray winter bird under the feeder
- Squirrel dreys: the leaf nests that show up in bare trees
- The Big Dipper never sets from eastern Massachusetts
- Steam fog: why ponds seem to smoke on cold autumn mornings
- Beaver food caches: the winter pantry of sticks beside the lodge
- Why there is frost when the air never dropped below freezing
- Black knot on cherry trees: the black lumps are a fungus
- Crow or raven: how to tell them apart by the tail
- Asian lady beetles gathering on sunny house walls in fall
- Eastern garter snakes basking on rocks before winter
- Oriental bittersweet: the invasive vine with orange and red berries
- Yellow-rumped warblers eating berries in late fall
- Golden-crowned kinglets in the pines from fall into winter
- Honey mushrooms: golden clusters at the base of trees in fall
- Second summer: the warm spell that follows the first autumn frost
- Staghorn sumac: scarlet fall leaves and red fruit into winter
- Woolly alder aphids: the white fluff drifting through the air in fall
- The Andromeda Galaxy in the evening sky
- Glacial erratics: lone boulders the ice sheet left behind
- Shaggy mane mushrooms that dissolve into ink
- Sumac fruit cones: red winter food for birds
- Yellowjackets at picnics and fallen fruit in fall
- Mourning cloaks: butterflies that winter as adults
- Cranberry harvest: flooded bogs turn red
- Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks at bird feeders
- Nor'easters: named for the wind, not the path
- Red squirrel cone piles under the pines
- Muskrat lodges: cattail mounds in the marsh
- White oak acorns that sprout a root in fall
- Why chimney smoke spreads flat on calm cold mornings
- The Summer Triangle in the autumn evening sky
- Hermit thrush: the brown thrush that lingers into fall
- Young red foxes leave home in autumn
- Cluster flies on sunny walls in autumn
- Red-spotted newts in cold-weather ponds
- Counting a young white pine's age by its branch whorls
- Black-capped chickadees hiding seeds in bark
- Your own shadow by full moonlight
- How to read tree rings on a cut stump
- How fast the days get shorter in fall
- Which way a snail shell coils
- Pileated woodpecker holes in dead trees
- Northern lights on a strong geomagnetic storm night
- How to find low pressure with your back to the wind
- What a jet contrail says about the air up high
- British soldier lichen and its bright red caps
- Cedar-apple rust galls on red cedar and juniper
- The twinkle test: how to tell a planet from a star
- Old man's beard lichen and its stretchy inner cord
- Owl pellets and whitewash: signs of an owl roost
- Western conifer seed bug: the leaf-footed bug on your window
- Partridgeberry: the red berry made from two flowers
- Hitchhiker seeds: burdock, beggarticks and tick-trefoil
- The moon illusion: why the rising moon looks so big
- Carolina wren song: the tea-kettle bird that sings all year
- Tinder conk: the gray hoof fungus on birch and beech
- Pits and mounds: how uprooted trees shape the forest floor
- Earthshine: the faint glow on a crescent Moon's dark side
- Eskers: winding ridges left by glacial meltwater rivers
- Beechdrops: the leafless plant that lives under beech trees
- Brown creeper: the bird that climbs trunks from the bottom up
- Drumlins: smooth oval hills shaped by glacial ice
- How to spot satellites crossing the sky after dusk
- White-breasted nuthatch: the bird that climbs down trees headfirst
- Tar spot: the black blotches on maple leaves
- Lichens on gravestones and old stone walls
- Wolf trees: old open-grown giants inside young woods
- Tell pines apart by counting needles in a bundle
- Split gill fungus, the fan that shrivels and revives
- Sun pillars: a column of light above the low sun
- Downy or hairy woodpecker: how to tell them apart
- Chaga: the black, burnt-looking fungus lump on birch trunks
- Earth's shadow and the Belt of Venus after sunset
- Hatchery trout are stocked in Massachusetts waters each fall
- Native brook trout spawn in stream gravel in October and November
- Life jackets for paddlers from September 15 to May 15
- Belted kingfishers rattle along rivers and ponds
- Keep dogs out of water that looks like pea soup or paint
- Porcupines cannot throw quills, but a nosy dog can get quilled
- Mass Audubon sanctuaries ban dogs while many state parks welcome them
- Sanderlings and sea ducks on state beaches once DCR's dog ban ends
- Blue Jays that mimic hawk calls
- Blue-green stained wood from the Chlorociboria fungus
- Glacial striations on Massachusetts bedrock ledges
- The Barred Owl's who-cooks-for-you call
- Fishers: not cats, and not the night scream
- Polypody ferns on boulders and rocky slopes
- Roxbury Puddingstone, the Massachusetts state rock