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By BILL DANIELSON

This week I shift my focus away from lakes and pond and toward bogs. There is certainly some overlap between these two habitats, but if you are able to find yourself in a majority-bog ecosystem, then you will see some very interesting things. I took today’s photo while visiting a place called Quoddy Head State Park, in Maine, but there are opportunities to find similar conditions right here in western Massachusetts. More on that later.

By BILL DANIELSON

This is a column that I have been sitting on for weeks. I was temporarily sidetracked with my exuvia story, but now I’m ready to dive into the nitty-gritty of the life histories of dragonflies and damselflies (members of the taxonomic order Odonata). Today I present you with a photo that perfectly conveys the mating process used by this group. It looks strange at the onset, but as we fill in some of the details it will all start to make sense.

By MADISON SCHOFIELD

After weeks of rain, finally a rainbow. 

By BILL DANIELSON

It has been a long, wet, raw month of May and my outdoor time has been curtailed by rotten weather on the weekends. So, it was with the utmost enthusiasm that I capitalized on a rare rain-free Saturday morning to get down to the Thinking Chair and commune with Nature just a bit. The chickadees (at least one of them) were ready to resume the practice of landing on my hat for some treats and I was very happy about that. I was also keen to see what was going on deeper in the forest, so after an hour of quiet observation time I got up out of my chair and headed into the woods.

As the 2025 wild turkey hunting season heads into the final stretch, I’m scratching my head wondering, “How did it get by us so fast?” Seems like only yesterday that we were talking about the excitement of another opening day, and now we’re just a few days away from the final week, and already counting the days until opening day of the 2026 season!

With the 2025 wild turkey hunting season right ahead of us, Massachusetts hunters are thinking full speed ahead, as Opening Day is set to kick off one half-hour after sunrise on April 28! That has turkey hunters beyond excited to get back into the springtime woods to match wits again with the greatest game bird of all time.