November is an understated month, its grays and browns predominant in the forest now that the trees have mostly shed...

"The walk to take today is the walk you took yesterday," says John Burroughs in his signature essay "A Sharp...

In Alice Walker's famous novel, The Color Purple, purple in nature is a symbol of all that is common, but...

No single feature so defines our region as does the Shawangunk Ridge. The long white battlement of this escarpment is...

Anyone who spends time outdoors at this season is likely to notice that many wild creatures have begun to synchronize...

No greater consolation can be found for the waning of summer than to go on a berry-picking expedition. Right now...

It’s hard to take a walk in midsummer or fall without being aware of the presence of spiders. Although they...

Sometimes the best way to appreciate our fleeting and miraculous existence on this planet is to study creatures whose brief...

When Jack-in-the-pulpit rises from the moist earth of the forest, we know that spring has arrived in full force. This...

This morning, in New Paltz, I hear again the sweet pure song of the white-throated sparrow. “Old Sam Peabody, Peabody”...

It’s not too late to find the flowers of April in our woods and fields, but the mild winter and...

When the shadbush begins to bloom, and the flicker sounds his quick-wick-wick-wick-wick call throughout our woods, showing his white rump...

It usually takes sharp eyes, and a bit of luck, to find the American woodcock, also called “timberdoodle,” “bogsucker,” and...

In some ways winter is the best season to look at trees. Without the dense foliage that obscures them in...

A cottontail rabbit crossed the trail here, passing from open woods to a brushy thicket at the edge of a...

A century ago, folks went to woods in the winter to make festive wreaths and garlands for the holiday season....