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By TED WATT

It was January, with two feet of cold crisp powder on the ground. The day was bright and sunny. The 5th and 6th grades at our small rural, hill-town school had been studying life sciences. Educators and students were focusing on animals and the many varied ways they are adapted, both physically and behaviorally, to living in their environment. We decided to take advantage of the perfect winter day and headed out to see what we could learn about how animals live in winter from the signs and tracks they left behind.

By CAROLYN BROWN

The roots music festival Back Porch Festival, which takes place in downtown Northampton, will return for its 11th year from Friday, March 7, through Sunday, March 9, with more than 60 performers.

By TOM LITWIN

During migration season this past fall, researchers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, using Nexrad weather radar, tracked approximately 4 billion birds migrating from Canada into the U.S. and 4.7 million birds leaving the U.S. for the tropics. Clearly one strategy for dealing with New England weather is to leave it behind. But other species’ strategies have traded the benefits and perils posed by thousands of miles of travel for the benefits and perils of northern winters.

By ALEXA LEWIS

Nature has served as an artistic muse for centuries, so it’s no surprise that music and environmental activism have historical connections.Two music festivals returning to Easthampton this summer embody the relationship between the natural and musical...

By STEVE PFARRER

When folk rockers Eavesdrop and singer-songwriter Grayson Ty come to the Iron Horse on June 28, the fellow Valley artists won’t just be sharing the bill: They’ll be celebrating a reunion of sorts, looking back to the night a little over eight years...

By TOM LITWIN

There is a stretch of road that runs north along the Connecticut River from the Whately/Hatfield line to the foot of Sugarloaf. It is no surprise its name is River Road. Leaving Northampton I often take “the river road,” the long way home. Over the...

By CHRISTINE HATCH

Swamps are great story villains. They are notoriously difficult to navigate due to their sinking sticky mud, spiked vines and dense vegetation; they are neither fully land nor water, negating boats and footwear as helpful vessels for traversing them;...

By KARI BLOOD

One of the reasons many of us love living in the Valley is being able to see wildlife around us. But those sightings will become increasingly rare if humans don’t take bold steps to slow the loss of species around the world. Scientists are sounding...

By TED WATT and HELEN ANN SEPHTON

This column honors Colleen Kelley, the education director at the Hitchcock Center, who will soon be leaving her post after 40 years.In the fall of 1984, Colleen walked into the Hitchcock Center — young, bright, idealistic, and fresh off a position as...

By JOSHUA ROSE

A few months ago, headlines flared that Peter Kaestner had seen his 10,000th bird species. This could have been anticlimactic, as Kaestner has been renowned for years among birders for traveling worldwide and seeing more species than anyone.However,...

By MICKEY RATHBUN

Most of us humans assume that other creatures experience the world through their senses of sound, taste, smell and touch, the same way we do. But we couldn’t be more wrong, as science writer Ed Yong explains in his fascinating new book, “An Immense...