December 20, 2020: Red-bellied Woodpecker

Yes, we'll get to the snow, but first, a new bird appeared in the yard, a first for me in Meredith.

Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus)

The instant I saw this bird on the feeder I knew it was something special.  I've only seen one previously, about 50 miles south of here.  One bird book published in 1981 lists their range on the east coast from Florida to as far north as Connecticut.  Another book, published in 1998, lists them as far north as Massachusetts, but says they are "spreading north".  Even the current Cornell Lab or Ornithology website has a map showing the range only as far north as the very southern edge of Massachusetts.

Red-bellied Woodpecker Range (year-round).  Source:  Cornell Lab of Ornithology

But as the climate changes, lots of things are moving north.  

It's a beautiful bird, about as large as the hairy woodpecker with a stunning redhead - just note that it hardly has any red on its belly; it's barely noticeable.

You can discern just a touch of red on the belly in this picture.

But plenty of red on its cap.

The black and white bars on its back are also eye-catching.

The red-bellied has a diet that consists primarily of insects, though it does consume lots of nuts, fruit, and seeds as well.  You know it's a southern bird when the foods listed include oranges, mangoes, and lizards!  It makes me wonder if it came up north along with the storm.  It has been visiting us every day so it must be satisfied with its hunting grounds even now that winter has arrived with a vengeance - our forecasted three to six inch snow storm worked it's way up to three feet here at Lake Wicwas.

The snow didn't even start until after midnight, and by dawn there were 11 inches on the ground.  During the morning it was coming down at a rate of over four inches per hour, with a peak of six inches in a single hour.  And there was no wind, at least on our side of the lake, so these are real snow depths, not drifts.  When it wrapped up less than 12 hours later we measured 33 inches of snow; the Laconia Daily Sun reported 39 inches in Meredith.  At least it was incredibly light and fluffy, and with no wind it wasn't too bad to shovel, but we sure went from nothing on the ground to mid-winter conditions in one day.  

A mid-winter sunrise the day after the storm.

The snow also brought along official ice-in for Lake Wicwas, declared on December 17th.  There was still open water when the snow started falling but all that cold snow in the water and low teens overnight froze the lake over by the morning of the 17th.  This date is in line with the average ice-in over the past 20 years on December 13th, but it's worth noting that over that time period ice-in has moved by more than a week.

In the 1970's there was never any doubt about being on the ice over Christmas vacation - we were always sledding and skating by then.  But especially this year with a heavy snow cover the ice may not be safe by Christmas.  If that trend line extrapolated linearly back 50 years it would put ice-in around mid to late November.  Does anyone have any records prior to 2000?

Though it may look like it, the ice is not safe today - here's where things stood just 5 days ago:

Open water on December 15th.

But there's no doubt that winter has arrived at the lake.