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Dave Mance III
There's still an element of magic in sugaring, still plenty of things we don't understand. Take how weather relates to a run. The book says you need a freeze-thaw cycle to build pressure in a tree, and that an ideal sugaring day will have lows in the upper-20s followed by highs in the upper-40s. Generally speaking, this is all true...
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Your March photos included a great image of a beaver, squirrel acrobatics, and a turkey mob that never received, or perhaps ignored, that memo about sharing the road. From loggers to sugarmakers, many of you were at work in the woods. Also in this gallery, some early signs of spring.
Our next gallery will be published in early May. Submit your April 2015 photos on the gallery page.
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Michael Caduto
Walking through the woods on a cool spring morning, I saw a barred owl in an old maple tree. I circled the owl three times from a distance. Its head kept turning to follow me, tracking my movements with three complete revolutions...
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Barbara Mackay
The transition from February to March is not subtle. With hardly time to recover from a truncated month, we attend Town Meeting, cede an hour to our clocks, and navigate spontaneously erupting frost heaves...
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What explains this pattern that forester Beth Daut spotted in the snow?
Every other week we run a photo of something unusual found in the woods. Guess what it is and you'll be eligible to win one of our Season's Main Events Day Calendars. A prize winner will be drawn at random from all the correct entries. The correct answer, and the winner's name, will appear in our next e-newsletter.
This week's contest deadline is 8:00 AM, Wednesday, April 15, 2015.
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Congratulations to our winner Tony Marple of Whitefield, ME! Tony receives a Season's Main Events Day Calendar.
Glen Roberts noticed this white pine while working in the woods in New York. Why does it look like this?
NW Answer:
Heavy porcupine damage has left the tree coated in pitch.
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Our cup runneth over. Actually, our inbox spilleth over. Either way, we have a lot of interesting news stories that cross our desks. Here were some of our favorites:
NATURE
Scientists prove the incredible power of a tiny bird; when it comes to singing, birds have nothing on mice; and restoring a massive animal in Alaska. A new report raises questions about the safety of glyphosate, while another finds that use of wood for fuel is not a cause of global deforestation. After 4,000 years of extinction, wooly mammoths are poised for a comeback, will these killer salamanders be next? Tree competition changes forests more than climate change, while tree rings tell the tale of the climate. There's more science on the detriments of forest fragmentation. Pretty picky: a plant that chooses its pollinators. There are coyotes in New York City, think they'd like a forest in Times Square?
INDUSTRY
Here's a consumer's guide to the latest EPA wood stove regulations, which take effect May 15. Massachusetts is investing in wood pellet heat, and investigating a timber theft. Fire devastates a Vermont sawmill, while not too far away Vermont Castings closes its plant in Bethel. Also in Vermont, the maple industry is getting A LOT bigger. The 2015 Northeast Biomass Heating Expo will take place April 16-18 in Maine and a national firewood workshop is being held in New York on May 7. For those who love burning wood, a pellet barbecue might be just the trick this summer.
STORIES YOU'VE SHARED
The annual meeting of the Massachusetts Forest Alliance will take place on April 25 in Southbridge, Massachusetts. The theme is "Wildlife in the Woods" and the meeting will feature a keynote presentation by Ben Kilham about the social lives of black bears. Steve DeStefano, a wildlife biologist with the U. S. Geological Survey, will also speak about the connection between forests and moose. To see the rest of the agenda and for registration information, click here.
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