In anticipation of the winter season, I am excited to announce that two Learn Your Land online courses are on sale this week.
To improve your foraging skills, consider enrolling in Foraging Wild Mushrooms.This 4-season online course is designed to help you safely and successfully harvest wild mushrooms from the forest, from the field, and even from your backyard.
To improve your tree identification skills, consider enrolling in Trees In All Seasons. This online course teaches you how to identify 100 trees in every season. If you want to develop the confidence to look at a tree and say, “That’s black spruce, no doubt about it,” or “That’s most certainly sourwood,” or “That can’t be anything but mockernut hickory,” consider enrolling today.
These courses are self-paced and presented entirely online. Once enrolled, you can start, stop, and resume at any time.
Cases of tick-borne diseases are on the rise, and people are wondering what to do.
Spray more repellent on clothes? Wrap more duct tape around socks? Ingest more Japanese knotweed? Cull more deer?
How about introducing more earthworms into tick-prone landscapes?
It sounds bizarre, but some ecologists are researching this latter strategy. According to a few studies, the prevalence of earthworms is associated with fewer ticks in certain ecosystems.
How is this possible? Why are earthworms associated with fewer ticks? Could the intentional release of earthworms into wild landscapes work as a viable tick-reduction strategy?
In a brand-new video, I address these fascinating questions.
It isn’t an easy question to answer, but I try my best to explain what it is about trees that makes me feel good.
I love the food trees offer. I enjoy the medicine trees provide. I like the shade trees cast. And I admire their beauty.
But there’s something else about trees I really appreciate: their ability to tell stories.
As it turns out, trees tell remarkable stories of peace, tragedy, death, and — believe it or not — democracy.
One notable tale that trees tell quite well is the story of America’s birth as a nation. While many people associate this story with icons like the Liberty Bell and the Declaration of Independence, the founding of the United States is also strongly connected — both physically and symbolically — to one particular tree.
Tall, majestic, and extremely useful, this tree has been famously labeled “the tree that built America.”
Speaking of trees, I was recently interviewed on Harvesting Nature’s Wild Fish and Game Podcast. In the interview, we discussed how trees can help you become a better hunter and observer of wildlife.
This course is designed to improve your ecological knowledge by introducing you to fascinating ecosystems — including alvars, barrens, bogs, dunes, fens, glades, savannas, vernal pools, and others!
Learning to recognize ecosystems is an essential step toward understanding how nature works. When we pay attention to the bigger picture, we see beyond individual components. We see connections, we see relationships, and we see where humans fit into the story.
If you want to develop ecological literacy; if you want to be able to read landscapes more effectively; if you want to see how all the components within nature are connected, consider enrolling in Exploring Wild Ecosystems today.
Please note that Exploring Wild Ecosystems is open for one week only — from today until Monday, September 30. After that, registration will be closed. Upon registration, you can immediately access all course content and view the lessons at your own pace.
To learn more about the course, check out this video which gives you an overview of what you can expect.
Thanks for supporting nature education! I hope to see you in there!
Many years ago, I became obsessed with finding wild cranberries. At the time, I had only read about wild cranberries in foraging books. I had never seen a single cranberry in the wild.
On my quest to find wild cranberries, I somehow ended up in northern Pennsylvania. A friend told me that a bog existed several miles north of I-80. “You can’t miss it,” my friend said. When I arrived at the location and stepped out of my car, all I could see was a deciduous forest.
“A bog must be in there somewhere,” I thought. Rather than consult a map, I immediately hopped on a trail leading into the woods.
A closed-canopy forest surrounded me for many miles. Large trees prevented sunlight from reaching the understory. The forest exuded dark beauty, but it lacked wild cranberries.
I continued walking deeper into the forest, constantly scanning the ground for wild cranberries. No luck.
Hours passed before a realization dawned on me. Earlier in the day, I saw an extensive opening in the forest. It was way off in the distance near the beginning of the trail. Unfamiliar with bogs, I thought the opening might’ve been a field or a meadow, so I ignored it. Several hours later, I realized my amateur mistake. Could the opening have been a bog?
With daylight fading fast, I headed back toward the opening and eventually walked into a sphagnum-rich ecosystem bursting with wild cranberries. “So this is a bog,” I thought to myself. “How could I have overlooked this?”
In hindsight, it’s easy to see how I missed the bog. I had no idea that a bog was an open habitat. I had no idea that finding a bog in a forest could be as simple as looking for light.
Today, I see things a bit differently. I certainly don’t consider myself to be an expert forager, but I understand the importance of developing ecological literacy — something that specialists often disregard.
To improve any outdoor skill — foraging, botanizing, birding, hunting — it’s essential that we learn the ecosystems in which our desired organisms live. I’m not sure why ecological thinking is undervalued today, but I decided to do something about it.
Exploring Wild Ecosystems is my newest online course designed to help you gain ecological literacy. If you want to be able to read landscapes more effectively, consider enrolling today. Enrollment is currently open until Monday, September 30.
Before I share a brand-new video with you, I’d like to mention that my newest online course, Exploring Wild Ecosystems, will reopen for registration on Monday, September 23.
This online course is designed to strengthen your relationship to wild places by introducing you to fascinating terrestrial and wetland ecosystems. With a focus on the connections and communities that bind nature together, Exploring Wild Ecosystems will help you gain important ecological skills.
Speaking of connections, forests are teeming with connections of all kinds. Nothing in a forest exists in isolation.
Take the cauliflower mushroom, for instance.
This edible mushroom grows in association with certain trees. To find the cauliflower mushroom, it only makes sense to explore ecosystems where these trees grow.
During a recent hike, I discovered a cauliflower mushroom growing near a mature red oak. Sensing the connection, I started checking every oak in the forest. Within 30 minutes, I found two more cauliflower mushrooms — one of which I harvested and turned into a delicious meal.
Fortunately, I brought my camera along to document the experience. To learn more about this lovely edible mushroom, check out the brand-new video.
Thanks for reading and watching! If you want to develop ecological literacy and see how all the components within nature are connected, consider enrolling in Exploring Wild Ecosystems on Monday.
This question constantly runs through the forager’s mind.
As it turns out, the answer isn’t always a simple yes or no, particularly regarding wild mushrooms.
Some mushrooms are choice edibles. Some mushrooms are toxic raw. Some mushrooms are toxic no matter how thoroughly you cook them.
But there’s another category of mushrooms: those that are no longer recommended for consumption even though field guides once listed them as edible.
Included in that latter category is a mushroom that grows in hemlock forests. This lilac-colored mushroom causes unpleasant symptoms in many people who consume it.
But not everyone experiences unpleasant symptoms, and in some cultures, this mushroom is considered undeniably edible.
Why is this the case? How can a mushroom poison some people and nourish others?
I like finding all kinds of trees, but there’s one tree in particular whose presence excites me more than most.
American chestnut.
I’ll drive out of my way to find a decent-sized American chestnut. I might even interrupt a conversation to point out American chestnut.
This behavior may seem strange to some people. I consider it proper etiquette for anyone with a burning passion for North American trees.
I recently explored a remote forest in search of American chestnut trees. By the end of the day, I had found dozens of American chestnuts — one of which was the largest I had ever seen.
Fortunately, I brought my camera along to document the experience. If you’re interested in seeing several beautiful American chestnuts, check out the brand-new video!
Thanks for reading and watching. Have you seen any American chestnuts lately?
In 1857, the Ohio State Legislature famously wrote:
The passenger pigeon needs no protection. Wonderfully prolific, having the vast forests of the North as its breeding grounds, traveling hundreds of miles in search of food, it is here today and elsewhere tomorrow…
Forty-five years later, the last wild passenger pigeon was shot and killed in Indiana. In 1914, the last member of the species died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo.
The passenger pigeon — a species once numbering in the billions — became extinct in a few short decades.
Barring a miracle in the field of de-extinction, no human alive today will ever see a living passenger pigeon that isn’t a biological novelty. No human alive today will stand in awe as massive flocks of passenger pigeons eclipse the sun and darken the skies.
But whether or not scientists actually figure out how to resurrect the dead, there is something many humans can experience today: the legacy left behind by the passenger pigeon on the North American landscape.
In a brand-new video, I discuss how the passenger pigeon profoundly altered North American forests.
I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of Shakespeare, but a particular line from Hamlet has always stuck with me.
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
These words come to mind particularly when I think about the current state of our forests.
Understandably, people are worried about the “unprecedented changes” occurring in woodland ecosystems. Invasive species are taking over, diseases are killing trees, and desirable organisms are failing to regenerate.
At any given moment, the state of our forests can seem rather bleak.
But when we recall the words of William Shakespeare, our perception of this matter shifts — especially when we consider something fascinating about eastern hemlock.
Many people know that an insect is currently threatening the health of eastern hemlock. Nothing about this situation seems good until we understand a critical piece of information: eastern hemlock is no stranger to threats.
In a brand new video, I discuss an important event of the past that may help us better understand modern-day forests.
Paths I Walk 
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