January 18, 2025: January Thaw

The January thaw came early this year when we saw three days with the temperature in the 40s.  Warm winter days always encourage a bit more activity in the outside world.  I saw a chipmunk out looking for fresh food, and a red squirrel came to compete with the gray squirrels under the bird feeders.

A red squirrel comes to visit.

It even dares to enter the squirrel house.

Prior to this I've noticed red squirrels finding lots to eat all on their own. 

These holes in the snow are scattered around the forest, indicating where a squirrel's fine sense of smell detected something down under the snow, often an acorn, sometimes a pinecone.

Oak leaves tell me this squirrel was after acorns.

A cone under the snow is most likely from a white pine that dropped it in the fall, because the cones from hemlock trees are still on the branches.  For these, the red squirrel sits in the tree and strips the scales off the tiny cones to access the even smaller seed underneath each scale.  A hemlock with a good crop of cones is noted by the large array of debris underneath it.

Debris scattered by a red squirrel stripping hemlock cones.

That's a lot of hemlock cones!

The tiny scales, and an intact cone attached to a hemlock branch.

Hemlock cones are quite small, the scales smaller, and the seeds underneath smaller yet, but they pack enough energy to make it valuable for birds and rodents to make the effort to extract them.

  

Larger bits of detritus found under trees are created by a larger bird hunting for larger prey.

This scattering of wood chips was made by a pileated woodpecker chopping holes in a decaying white pine to access insects, almost certainly eggs and larvae of carpenter ants that have made a nest in the soft, decaying wood. 

 Chips made by a pileated woodpecker can be two or three inches long.

Looking up I see where they came from.

This dead pine will feed a lot of different animals both before and after it falls.

So far this winter we have seen all but two of our most common avian friends at the feeders; the only ones missing to date are mourning doves and juncos (aka snowbirds).  To date we have seen chickadees, titmice, downy and hairy woodpeckers, white and red-breasted nuthatches, and goldfinches - lots of gold finches.  This week they emptied one of the feeders in just a few days.  

Goldfinches can monopolize the feeders, but it didn't stop this chickadee from trying to claim a perch.

Goldfinches are small but bold birds, able to fend off even the big bully of the feeders, the white-breasted nuthatch.  They can also be aggressive to their own kind.

Although when a woodpecker shows up, even the smaller downy woodpecker, everyone moves over, at least for a few moments. 

Downy Woodpecker

Other nearby birdwatchers with different local habitats have reported winter birds that we rarely see at our feeders, including bluebirds and cardinals.  Over the course of the winter we usually get a few interesting visitors such as crossbills, purple finches, cedar waxwings, and the aforementioned bluebirds.  We're surprised at how rarely we see blue jays, often thought of as birdfeeder bullies.  

Put the dates February 14 and 15 on your calendar for the NH Audubon Backyard Bird Count.  Anyone can participate and it only requires a few minutes in the comfort of your own home.  I'll provide more information on that in the coming weeks.

As a result of the warm days and some rain, the lake once again offered excellent skating opportunities when, in typical New England fashion, the temperature plummeted overnight from the 40s to the single digits.

A very nice skating surface.

Add in 20 mph northwest winds, and I didn't mind that a sore ankle gave me an excuse to not partake in skating on a cold blustery day.  And the next day?

The snow was back and the skating over.  

But there were some signs of spring this week if you squinted hard.  On those warm days I heard chickadees singing their spring "dee-dee-dee" song, and the sighting of a chipmunk is always promising.  And then there was this:

A few bits of yellow summer plumage peeking out from under the brown winter feathers of a male goldfinch is always a positive sign.  It's still early in winter, but we're already one-third of the way to the spring equinox!

January 11, 2026: A Winter Walk

I thought I'd do something different this week.  Rather than review the whole week, let's take one short, 45 minute winter walk and see what we find.  

The day started off with a beautiful, almost full moon shining through the bare oak branches.

Just past full, the January Wolf Moon was slightly egg shaped.

Then, just before sunrise, the clouds were painted with pink and purple hues found in northern climates before a winter sunrise.

A northern astronomical effect sometimes called "Alpenglow"

It was a prologue for a beautiful winter day in New Hampshire.

As soon as we start out on our walk, we find where an animal had crossed the trail. 

In a few inches of deep snow, the prints are too indistinct to identity, but the behavior makes me think bobcat; fox and coyote usually follow along the trail.  Following the animal's tracks would give us more clues, but today we're out looking for multiple animal signs, so we continue along the trail.  Up ahead we see a stone wall.

Stone walls are huge housing developments for small animals, and it didn't take long to see where one resident went from one apartment to another, or maybe from one pantry to another.

A mouse scurries across a gap in the wall.

Down into a hole where sunlight warmed the rock and melted the snow away.

Soon we come to a young forest growing back after being cleared recently.

This is a young successional forest, the ideal habitat for many nesting warblers, so I always look for bird nests.  Sure enough, we find one.

The habitat, location, materials, and nest built between multiple branches suggest this may be a robin nest rather than that of a warbler.

Patches of young forest such as this are uncommon in New Hampshire, but they're essential for diversity of species.  We soon leave this small patch of successional forest and head into a maturing hemlock-hardwood-pine forest typical of the Lakes Region and central New Hampshire.  Now we find a set of tracks that does follow the trail.

They don't have the narrow, single-file track of a fox though, and where the snow is deep there's more foot drag than I expect, so I'm not sure what it is.  But these tracks are in our path, so we'll follow them, knowing that over distance, snow condition and exposure will result in different quality prints to study.  It's not long before  the track modifies, and then we find a few prints that provide enough clues to conclude we're on the trail of a canine.  

Here, in thinner snow,  the trail looks more like we expect from a canine.

The elongated print says "canine" (a feline has a more rounded footprint) and there are clear toenail marks in the print which a cat - with retractable claws - rarely shows when walking in snow.

The prints are large - over 2.5" long - and have a clear "x" mark between the toe pads, both indicators of a coyote rather than a fox, so that's my conclusion.  

If we return to this maturing forest in a few days - without new snow - we would surely see signs of red squirrels, turkeys, and woodpeckers.  And if we turn off the trail to head up towards a ledge, we might find signs of porcupine as well.  That will be a walk for another day.  But before we leave the forest, we note a seep where water has melted the snow cover, providing a critical source of winter hydration for the animals.

Seeps provide liquid water for birds and small mammals.

Having seen what's in two different forest types, we move onto a new habitat type, a bog.

  Here we find signs of a new animal, a human.

Crossing the human's ski trail we can discern an otter track left before the most recent snow.

We also see this human has a companion in the form of domesticated canine.

Man's best friend accompanies our skier.

It's almost always easy to differentiate domestic dog tracks from those of coyotes and foxes because domestic dogs lack the grace and discipline of a wild animal that knows minimizing energy use is critical to its winter survival.  A wild animal trots in an efficient, steady manner, while a dog tends to zig and zag, leaving a rather messy trail.

Standing on this bog, I realize we're in the exact spot where I floated in my kayak four months ago watching dragonflies patrol this territory.  (September 21, 2025)  The larvae of next year's dragons are down there below our feet, waiting for spring.

Hard to believe that in a few months this will again be the domain of dragonflies.

Going around the point and leaving the bog, we move into a fourth habitat, an open lake.  A week or so after a snowfall this area might be crisscrossed with animal tracks, but today, after fresh snow, it's pretty clean.  Today we find only more otter tracks along the shoreline that were made before the snow (as well as the track where our coyote walked on the lake).

Old otter tracks.

Otter tracks under the new snow, as well as fresh coyote tracks.

Then along the shoreline we notice a bird nest I paddled by a dozen times this summer, but never saw  hidden in the foliage of the blueberry bush in which it was built.

A bird nest in a blueberry branch hanging over the lake.

This is most certainly the nest of a red-eyed vireo.  The clues are its location at the water's edge, its height of just a few feet above the water, and, a most important clue, the inclusion of lichen in the nest materials which was revealed after I brushed the fresh snow off the nest.

Stopping to study one item so often results in noticing other details that would have otherwise been missed, in this case these few remaining chokecherries not yet gobbled up by the birds.

Some blurry chokecherries to feed the winter fruit-eaters.

Next along the shore we come upon the bald-faced hornet nest I discovered paddling in October.  October 19, 2025

It hasn't fared well through the winter weather, but inside, the hexagonal chambers where the hornet larvae were fed and developed, are intact.

The larvae chambers in the nest.

From here, our trip continues with a walk across the open lake.

But back at the shoreline is one more mystery track.

I could not quite convince myself these are mink tracks along the shoreline, but their size, shape, behavior, and location right at the water's edge leans towards mink.

All the indications of a mink, a small member of the weasel family.

So now we're back to the start, and there it is, a 45 minute walk on a winter's day.  We travelled through at least four different habitats over the distance of less than a mile where even in the middle of winter there is abundant life.  This is the miracle of the riparian zone:  that ecological area at the interface between terrestrial and aquatic systems.  90% of our wildlife depend on riparian areas for their survival; it is the single most important part of life in New Hampshire, an area worthy of intense protection. 

And that was a walk in daylight.  When the sun sets and the moon illuminates the world, a whole new host of characters takes over the riparian zone, from owls to flying squirrels.

The Wolf Moon shines down, reminding us that at one time, wolves roamed here too.

Maybe we'll go on a moonlight walk sometime.

January 4, 2026: New Year's Visitors

Happy New Year!  

We had the pleasure of our first visitors of 2026 when the bobcat family stopped by on New Year's Day.

Mother bobcat and one of her two kits.

Mom and her two kits came looking to find a meal under the bird feeders.  We first saw mom near the feeders, but at that point all the targets of her hunt had fled, including the half dozen gray squirrels that had been there a moment before.  There isn't a lot of cover around the feeders, so it's hard to ambush prey; only once have we seen a bobcat catch a squirrel, and it was a very impressive feat.  So mom left emptyhanded, and headed back up through the woods.  

An unsuccessful hunting attempt.

When she reached the path, her two kits came trotting right up to her to see if she was bringing them lunch.  

Three little bob tails stick out from behind a tree.

Apparently she had instructed them to wait patiently hidden away while she went on her hunting mission.  They were of course disappointed, but they snuggled up and told her they understand.

It's ok mom, you'll get 'em next time.

Both kits looked strong and healthy, though one was noticeably smaller than the other, and he/she kept close to its mother.

The smaller of the two kits.

The larger kit was braver and more independent, venturing off on its own ahead of the others.

The larger kit.  Look at the size of the hind paws!

It was a great way to start the new year!  

There won't be any tracking opportunities to see what the bobcats or anyone else is doing until we get more snow because the ice storm this week created a bulletproof snowpack. 

Ice coats the trees.

Whether the ice-coated landscape is beautiful or not depends on perspective.  If you were one of the 10,000 Lakes Region customers who lost power, it was, understandably, not pretty to have everything coated with a quarter inch of ice.

But if you were safe and warm and able to get out the next day when the sun came out, there were some picturesque sights to see.  

Mother nature provides an endless array of wonders.  What new marvels will 2026 bring us?