Dave Anderson

6 days ago | nhpr.org | Dave Anderson |Chris Martin |Jessica Hunt

Have you ever walked or paddled along a riverbank, and noticed a towering tree with deeply-furrowed gray bark and huge bright green leaves that flutter in the breeze like butterfly wings? If so, you’ve probably met the Eastern Cottonwood. The poplars are a few of New England’s amazing tree pioneers. Cottonwoods, along with related big-toothed and trembling Aspens, aren’t always given much respect, yet they are unsurpassed at what they do.

2 weeks ago | nhpr.org | Dave Anderson |Chris Martin |Jessica Hunt

If you’re a new transplant to New Hampshire, you might not have noticed our other "foliage season.” Each spring, tiny tree flowers and swelling buds, ready to burst, paint a subtle wash of early pastel color across our hillsides and wetlands. Colorful twigs are not as exuberant as flower blossoms. We don't get bright March cherry blossoms like Washington, D.C. Maybe we try to compare our northern surroundings to warmer climes too soon and feel inadequate.

1 month ago | nhpr.org | Dave Anderson

This time of year, Something Wild co-host Dave Anderson is busy in his sugar house. He’s trying to keep the sap boiling just as fast as it flows through the network of blue tubing that runs through his sugarbush. He even sets a timer to remind himself to keep feeding wood into the fire under the evaporator. It’s a charming setting, with sweet-scented maple steam wafting out the vents and drifting down into the village.

1 month ago | nhpr.org | Dave Anderson

Who doesn’t love a winter wildlife story, reading tracks in the snow, and looking for clues about the wild visitors to our backyards and woodlands? Seeing deer around New Hampshire is pretty common, but when it gets to this time of year, not so much. New Hampshire Fish and Game suggests there are close to 100,000 white-tailed deer in the state. When the snow is not too deep, they can survive on bark, twigs, and buds, or by scratching up acorns from under shallow snow.

2 months ago | wbur.org | Chris Martin |Dave Anderson |Jessica Hunt

New Hampshire has two species of grouse. You’re probably familiar with the ruffed grouse; it lives in woodlands throughout the state. But there’s another grouse found in the Granite State that few people have ever seen. “Too bad the spruce grouse is so little known, because it’s got to be the most audacious of the gallinaceous,” says Dave Anderson, co-host of NHPR’s Something Wild. Gallinaceous refers to chicken-like birds, including both grouse and wild turkey.