Treatments for spongy moth (formerly known as the gypsy moth) infestations in several areas across North Carolina will start as early as June 7 and could continue through June 20, according to the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

For many people who grew up in the eastern United States, the soft yellow blink of fireflies drifting over dusky fields and lawns is synonymous with summer, a nostalgic symbol of warmth and childhood. But few would guess that the common eastern firefly (Photinus pyralis) is one of more than two thousand firefly species worldwide. 

During the summer of 2011, billions of cicada eggs hatched inside tree twigs across the Southeast. The hatchlings, called nymphs, dropped down and burrowed into the ground, where they’ve been sucking on tree roots ever since. 

Balsam Mountain Trust announced its seventh-annual Bird Festival celebrating World Migratory Bird Day. 

They can eat just about anything and multiply like crazy. They live all over the world, in a variety of environments — wherever you go, they’re likely nearby. 

Red maples are popping, and it appears spring has sprung. As the weather improves, local beekeepers’ hives are buzzing back to life. 

If happiness can be found in simple things, then Moses Creek is the place to look. And often those things are seasonal, which adds the element of pleasurable anticipation to their arrival. 

Explore the love-hate relationship between birds and insects during a talk from Balsam Mountain Trust Executive Director Michael Wall at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 16, at the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva.

This spring, the eastern United States will play host to one of nature’s great marvels — periodical cicadas, mysterious insects that live underground either 13 or 17 years before emerging for a few short weeks of furious mating closely followed by mass death. 

At some point roughly 20 years ago, a shipment from Asia arrived in the United States with a passel of six-legged stowaways lurking in its wooden pallets. Since it was first detected near Detroit in 2002, the emerald ash borer has gnawed its way through ash trees across North America, leaving a swath of destruction across 31 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces — and counting.

The EAB was first spotted in North Carolina in 2013, when it was confirmed in Granville, Person, Vance and Warren counties, a contiguous area in the central part of the state bordering Virginia. Now it’s present in 33 of the state’s 100 counties and continues to spread. WNC counties with confirmed ash borer infestations are Haywood, Swain, Macon, Graham, Buncombe, Madison, Mitchell and Yancey counties — this month, the N.C. Forest Service found EAB on several trees in the Alarka area of Swain County after the beetle was initially found in Bryson City last summer.