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.
What to notice outside around Sudbury in October
Each one says when to look, how to notice it, and where the facts come from.
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
Orionid meteor shower 2026: peak night of October 21 and the moon
The Orionids, grit shed by Halley's Comet, peak on the night of October 21 into the 22nd; in 2026 the dark window is between moonset and first light.
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
Morning dew and the dew point: why grass is soaked without rain
When surfaces cool below the dew point, water vapor condenses into droplets on grass, cars and webs by morning.
Weather
Dew on spider webs: the morning every web in the yard shows
Fine dew droplets outline webs that are almost impossible to see in dry air, so one still, humid night can reveal every strand around the yard.
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
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
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.
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
Fall warbler migration through Massachusetts yards and trees
Warblers move south through Massachusetts from late August to late October, drab and silent in fall, and the way to find them is to follow the chickadees.
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
Blue jays carrying and hiding acorns in fall
A blue jay can carry up to five small acorns at once and may hide 3,000 to 5,000 nuts in a season, so the loud jay parties in the oaks are a harvest crew.
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
Hearing migrating songbirds call overhead at night
Most songbirds migrate after dark and call as they fly, and from an ordinary yard the thrushes are within earshot: a soft short peep from the black sky.
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
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
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
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
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
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
Belted kingfishers rattle along rivers and ponds
A belted kingfisher announces itself with a dry rattle, hovers over water, and plunges headfirst for a fish. The female is the more colorful one.
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
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.
Insects
Insects
Green darner dragonfly migration through the Northeast
From late August into fall, common green darners stream south through the Northeast, a dragonfly migration flown by the offspring of the spring arrivals.
Insects
How orb weaver spiders spin a new web after dark
Many orb weavers eat their worn web and spin a whole new wheel in about an hour after dark, so the crisp web you find at breakfast is often brand new.
Insects
Cricket chirps and temperature: why the chorus slows as nights cool
Crickets are cold-blooded, so the tempo of their chirping tracks the evening air: brisk at dusk and slower as a late-summer night cools off.
Insects
Goldenrod and asters: late flowers that feed bumble bees and monarchs
Goldenrods and asters bloom into fall in New England, and their pollen and nectar carry bumble bees and migrating monarchs when little else is flowering.
Insects
Woolly bear caterpillars crossing roads in fall
The black-and-rust fuzzy caterpillars crossing pavement in fall are woolly bears seeking winter shelter, where they freeze nearly solid and thaw in spring.
Insects
Fall webworm tents on branch tips: the silk nests explained
The gauzy silk bags wrapping whole branch ends on cherries and other hardwoods are fall webworm nests, with the caterpillars feeding safely inside.
Insects
Praying mantis season: full-grown mantises and their egg cases
September is peak mantis season, when the year's mantises are full size in gardens and meadows and females leave foam egg cases on stems for winter.
Insects
Why a cricket starts chirping inside the house in September
When nights turn cool in September, field crickets slip indoors for warmth, so a chirp starts up behind the bookcase or under the basement stairs.
Insects
Ballooning spiders: young spiders flying away on silk threads
On warm fall days young spiders climb to a high point, let out silk and ride the wind, a trip that can cover inches or hundreds of miles.
Insects
Daddy longlegs, or harvestmen: not spiders, and not venomous
The daddy longlegs on the shed wall is a harvestman, not a spider: one body piece, no silk, no fangs, no venom. The most venomous spider story is a myth.
Insects
Bald-faced hornet nests: paper globes in the trees, seen from afar
The gray, teardrop-shaped paper globe in a tree has grown all summer and can hold 100 to 400 hornets; admire the chewed-wood architecture from a distance.
Insects
Asian lady beetles gathering on sunny house walls in fall
Multicolored Asian lady beetles swarm onto sun-warmed outside walls each fall, favoring south- and west-facing sides of light-colored houses.
Insects
Woolly alder aphids: the white fluff drifting through the air in fall
Some small white tufts drifting through the air in fall are woolly alder aphids, wrapped in waxy threads and flying from alder to silver maple for winter.
Insects
Yellowjackets at picnics and fallen fruit in fall
Late in the season yellowjacket workers forage mostly for sugar, crowding picnics, fallen fruit and trash cans until the first hard frost.
Insects
Mourning cloaks: butterflies that winter as adults
Mourning cloak butterflies spend the winter as adults in hollow trees or woodpiles and are among the earliest butterflies to fly in spring.
Insects
Cluster flies on sunny walls in autumn
Cluster flies, slightly larger and slower than house flies, gather on sunny walls in autumn looking for a place to spend the winter.
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
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.
Plants
Plants
Jewelweed seed pods that burst open at a touch
Along wet, shady edges in eastern Massachusetts, ripe jewelweed pods are coiled springs that burst at the slightest touch and fling their seeds away.
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
Oak galls: the bumps and balls on oak leaves, and what makes them
The bumps and balls on eastern Massachusetts oak leaves are galls, tissue the tree grew around a tiny wasp or other insect, and most do the tree no harm.
Plants
Goldenrod in late summer: a crowded table for bees and butterflies
Late-summer goldenrod patches in Massachusetts gather bees, butterflies and dozens of other insects onto a few bright yellow plumes as other flowers fade.
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
Milkweed pods splitting open to release silky seeds
Common milkweed pods on Massachusetts roadsides and meadow edges split in late summer and early fall, each sending off a hundred or more seeds on silk.
Plants
Why leaves change color in fall: the yellows were there all along
The yellows and oranges of a Massachusetts fall sit hidden in leaves all summer, revealed when shortening days shut down the green chlorophyll over them.
Plants
Goldenrod or ragweed: which one causes fall allergies
Goldenrod gets blamed for fall allergies, but its pollen is too heavy and sticky to fly. The real culprit is drab green ragweed, blooming at the same time.
Plants
Virginia creeper and poison ivy: the first vines to turn red in fall
Weeks before the trees change, Virginia creeper goes deep crimson and poison ivy turns orange and red while everything behind them is still green.
Plants
Red maples in New England swamps: the first trees to turn in fall
New England fall color starts in wet spots: red maples, the swamp maples, turn in low ground weeks before the hillsides, sometimes before Labor Day.
Plants
Pokeweed berries and purple stems: a look-only plant
Along wood edges and fences, pokeweed grows reddish-purple stems taller than a person, with drooping grape-like clusters ripening green to purple-black.
Plants
Why poison ivy turns red so early in fall, and what the red is for
Roadside and stone-wall poison ivy goes brilliant red before any maple starts while its berries turn white. The color signals birds that the fruit is ripe.
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
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
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
Staghorn sumac: scarlet fall leaves and red fruit into winter
Staghorn sumac colonies along roadsides and field edges turn scarlet, orange and gold in early fall, and female plants keep upright red fruit into winter.
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
White oak acorns that sprout a root in fall
White oak group acorns start growing a root soon after they fall, while red oak group acorns wait for spring.
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
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
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
Beechdrops: the leafless plant that lives under beech trees
Beechdrops are leafless brownish plants that live only under American beech, feeding on its roots, with small tube flowers in early fall.
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
Keep dogs out of water that looks like pea soup or paint
Some blue-green algae blooms make toxins that can sicken dogs. The state says blooms are most common in summer and early fall.
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
Chipmunks stuffing their cheeks to stock a winter larder
In September and October each chipmunk dash across a yard is a delivery run, cheek pouches holding about 72 sunflower seeds, bound for tunnels underground.
Mammals
Woodchucks fattening up for hibernation in late summer and fall
A woodchuck grazing a field edge is building the fat it lives on all winter: it is one of Massachusetts' few true hibernators and eats nothing till spring.
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
Where the yard's bats go in September and October
The bats over the lawn in August thin out through September and October. Some fly south, and the ones that stay sleep through winter until spring.
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
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
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
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 mushrooms pop up after rain in Massachusetts
Each mushroom that appears after a Massachusetts rain is the short-lived fruiting body of a fungus whose threadlike main body stays hidden in soil or wood.
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
Giant puffballs in lawns and fields from August to October
A white ball the size of a soccer ball in the grass is a giant puffball, one of the largest fungi, and a ripe one holds an estimated seven trillion spores.
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
Hen of the woods at the base of the same oak year after year
Hen of the woods is a big gray-brown mushroom in overlapping rosettes at the foot of living oaks, and the same oak often produces one year after year.
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
Honey mushrooms: golden clusters at the base of trees in fall
Honey mushrooms are golden-tan to brown clusters at the base of trunks and stumps from late summer into fall, the fruiting stage of Armillaria.
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
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
Snapping turtle hatchlings crossing lawns and roads toward water
Snapping turtle eggs laid in early summer hatch from late August through October, and quarter-sized hatchlings walk overland toward ponds and rivers.
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
Eastern garter snakes basking on rocks before winter
Eastern garter snakes bask on rocks on sunny fall afternoons, then head underground as it cools to shared winter dens called hibernacula.
Amphibians
Red-spotted newts in cold-weather ponds
Some adult red-spotted newts stay active in ponds into the cold months, feeding in cold water and sometimes even under ice.
Landscape
Landscape
Why vernal pools dry up in summer, and why that matters
By midsummer most Massachusetts vernal pools are shrinking toward a dry bed of dark leaves, and that regular drying is what keeps fish from settling in.
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
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
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
Cranberry harvest: flooded bogs turn red
Growers in southeastern Massachusetts flood cranberry bogs in fall and churn the water; air pockets float the berries into a sheet of red.
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
Hatchery trout are stocked in Massachusetts waters each fall
MassWildlife raises trout in its hatcheries and stocks them in spring and fall, and posts a stocking report you can search by town or waterbody.
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.