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1,000 Words


Winter 2023

While exploring the woods near his home in Ohio last year, Sam Cox came across a hollow tree he thought looked like the perfect owl nesting site. Although he didn’t find any owl sign,…

Autumn 2023

A favorite of foragers, shagbark hickory nuts can be used in recipes ranging from granola and cake to cookies and fudge – or simply, as Tami Gingrich notes, for snacking straight from…

Summer 2023

While walking in a milkweed patch at dusk, Tig Tillinghast found a flower crab spider that had just ambushed and immobilized a fly. “It was difficult to get adequate depth for this…

Spring 2023

On a spring day, Ithaca, New York–based photographer Melissa Groo watched a mother gray squirrel painstakingly move her kits to a new nest. “Grasping them in her mouth,” Groo…

Winter 2022

Jackie Robidoux captured this great blue heron pair during a late winter snowstorm in Horse Hill Nature Preserve in Merrimack, New Hampshire. A photographer and wildlife rehabilitator,…

Autumn 2022

After the Great New England Hurricane of 1938 devastated forests throughout the region, fallen logs were salvaged and sometimes stored in ponds and other wetlands, where immersion in water has…

Summer 2022

A gray fox kit licks its mother after nursing. Photographer Lisa Lacasse spent three days in June watching this fox family in Quechee, Vermont, as the six kits chased each other and played…

Spring 2022

Mainly nocturnal and amazingly well camouflaged, eastern screech-owls can be very difficult to spot. Weighing a mere 4 to 8 ounces, these short, stocky owls often roost in tree cavities.…

Winter 2021

On a perfect January day, climbers Majka Burhardt and husband Peter Doucette cross a frozen Lake Willoughby in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom in search of vertical ice. Lake Willoughby…

Autumn 2021

Every autumn, North Branch Nature Center in Montpelier, Vermont hosts a banding station for migrating northern saw-whet owls, a common but seldom-seen woodland species. Tig Tillinghast…

Summer 2021

“There’s no finer place to be on a hot day than in water, but I quickly tire of swimming, so recently, I began bringing an underwater camera to the lakes and rivers near my…

Spring 2021

“I found this ovenbird in Allegany State Park, New York. It was springtime, and he was singing lustily at the edge of the woods. His desire to claim his territory outweighed any fear he…

Winter 2020

Frozen Time: “A drop of water hanging from this twig was twisted by the winds blowing through the forest in Manchester Center, Vermont, as the temperature rapidly dropped, forming an…

Autumn 2020

“I first put my boots on the ground in the Maine Woods in 1965,” explained Roger Merchant. “Like this wood turtle, the going was slow and deliberate.” He photographed…

Winter 2019

“Last February, in late afternoon, a bobcat found the suet feeder in my backyard," explains photographer Elinor Osborn, who resides in Craftsbury Common, Vermont. "It dined on…

Autumn 2019

“I captured this image of a heron at sunrise from my kayak in northern New Hampshire,” said photographer Chris Mazzarella. “I used my 70-200mm f2.8 lens to create an…

Spring 2019

So much for precise bluebird nest box dimensions. Tom Wetmore and Heidi Marcotte of Hartland, Vermont, found a brilliant use for a maple syrup jug that accidentally came too close to their…

Winter 2018

Photographer Roger Irwin spends considerable time trekking around the Northeast, in all seasons and conditions and terrain, in search of wildlife. His journey to get this photo was…