Field Guide to May 2025
This month is filled with natural delights. Bees buzzing around flowering trees, lively Blackpoll Warblers in backyards, and bud burst await. Grab your binoculars and take a neighborhood walk — here are the sounds and sights of May.
Know Your Five Apple Pollinators
With more than 350 species of wild bees in Vermont, it’s daunting to understand them all. So let’s start with a beloved flowering tree that is all over Vermont’s commercial…
Does No Mow May Invite Invasives and Ticks to Your Yard?
The term “No Mow May” seems to imply that helping our pollinators is as simple as that: not mowing. But there are drawbacks.
New Names for Some Vermont Birds: a Primer on Taxonomy
Each year, experts on the American Ornithological Society (AOS) North American Classification Committee carefully review proposals to split and lump species based on new scientific evidence, to make sure species are grouped based on the best available science. And this typically calls for a new set of common names as well.
Why Are Evening Grosbeak Numbers Rising in the Northeast and Declining Everywhere Else?
Evening Grosbeaks have declined by about 90% in the last 50 years in most of the country. But in the Northeast, the population has been increasing. We hosted a team of researchers to tag these birds and find out why.
Field Guide to April 2025
It may be mud season in Vermont, but there are pops of color to be found if you know where to look! From small flowers on the forest floor to fluttering moths and spotted frogs calling from the ponds, there are so many beautiful reasons to get outside and muck around. So grab your raincoat and keep your eyes and ears open for April’s coming attractions.
February 2025 Photo-observation of the Month
Congratulations to iNaturalist user @cgbb2004 for winning the February 2025 Photo-observation of the Month for the Vermont Atlas of Life on iNaturalist! Their photo of a Short-tailed Weasel with snowy-white fur…
Field Guide to March 2025
March has arrived in classic New England spring fashion this year. With rapid shifts between blistering cold and warm rainy days, this month is reminiscent of its’ eponymous Roman god, Mars. Being named after the god of war, March is a month of battles between warm and cold, between winter’s refusal to leave and spring’s insistence on coming.
Follow this contest as it unfolds to an inevitable conclusion with these signs of spring.
Lamoille Birders Win 14th Annual Vermont eBird County Quest
Vermont’s robust birding community took part in the 14th Vermont eBird County Quest in 2024. The annual year-long contest pits county versus county, birder against birder, all engaged in a friendly rivalry for top birding honors. The main idea behind the County Quest is simply to get people out birding, promote camaraderie, and better document bird life across the state using eBird Vermont. Lamoille County captured the gold medal for this first time in 2024.
February 2025 Field Guide
This month, wildlife and the rest of us here in New England will cross a threshold – arbitrary yet not insignificant: 10 hours of daylight. So here’s a Field Guide to February to help get your hopes up, no matter what that Groundhog predicts.
January 2025 Photo-observation of the Month
Congratulations to iNaturalist user @rebelgirl73 for winning the January 2025 Photo-observation of the Month for the Vermont Atlas of Life on iNaturalist! Her photo of a Barred Owl perched on a street sign received the most faves of any iNaturalist observation in Vermont during the past month.
Vermont State Butterfly Proposed for Threatened Species Listing
For many Vermonters, Monarchs are a much-anticipated sign that summer is truly here. However, experts have long been growing concerned over declines in migratory Monarch populations. In December 2024, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service officially proposed to list the species as Threatened.
