March 28, 2021: Snowdrops Replace Snowbanks

There's not much snow left in the Lakes Region at this point though the ice on the lake is still hanging on strong.  Sixty degree weather took a toll on the snow pack, but it didn't deter one intrepid skier from taking a few more circuits around Lake Wicwas.  I was barely bold enough to venture out on one well-shaded part of the lake yesterday to see what the ice was like, and I found thirteen inches of ice remaining - six inches of solid black ice underneath seven inches of soft, porous, white ice.  But that first step out was sketchy - I actually stepped onto a floating iceberg that was separated by cracks before I walked out to the main ice sheet.

Thick ice in some places, but treacherous getting to it.

All that snow turning to water is replenishing our lakes, washing out the winter road salt, and filling the streams and rivers and there haven't been any really hot temperatures or heavy rains so the snow melt has been pretty steady without any big flooding problems or ice dams at this point.  Still, the beavers are going to have to get busy soon to repair the leaks that have sprung in their dams.

It won't take them long to patch these small breaches.

But as the snowpiles waned, turning to water, the snowdrops blossomed.

Snowdrops

Crocuses are starting to poke up and will soon be in bloom.  Spring flower season has begun!

More birds are starting to appear as the shoreline gaps in the ice expand to give them more space to explore.  The sounds and sights of Canada geese have become common as the migrating geese search for breeding sites.

A flock of geese scouting the territory.

When nesting time comes the female goose will select the site and do most of the nest construction while the male (gander) will perform guard duty, defending the nest and surrounding territory from predators as well as other intruding pairs of geese.

Now, please excuse me while I rant for a minute on one of my pet peeves.  Why is it that Bud Light drinkers feel that the world is their trash can, and that someone else should pick up after them?  Everywhere I go I find Bud Light cans strewn around, whether it's on the side of the road (dozens) floating in the lake, or five miles up in the Ossipee Mountains on the snowmobile trail.  

On the road,

In the lake,

Five miles up Mt. Shaw.

Three Bud Lights in this picture.

Yes, there are others, but Bud Light is far and away the beer of litterbugs.

OK, I'm done.  Back to something nice.  How about a mystical foggy evening to end the week.

The late afternoon sun filters through the trees, illuminating fog rising off the ice.

An hour later, sunset.

There, now I feel better.

March 21, 2021: A Time to Wait

I might have had my last excursion on the lake for a few weeks as we enter one of the two times during the year when our lakes are inaccessible.  In both spring and fall there are several weeks where ice seals the lake off from boating but is not safe for travel even on foot, and with a forecast for several sunny days with temperatures near 60 I may have had my last trip until open water returns.  Even with well over a foot of ice covering most of Lake Wicwas - and many other lakes - there are already open areas where streams empty into the lake or where a south-facing shoreline heats the water.  

Things will progress quickly from here with full sun and warm temperatures.  That same spot looked like this just a few days ago, and it hasn't even been particularly warm.

What keeps me off the ice are the unknow danger spots as strong March sun makes the ice soft and porous, and currents in the lake create unpredictable thin spots.  But I did get one trip across the lake in astronomical spring - the vernal equinox occurred yesterday at 5:37am (eastern daylight time).  

On one of my last trips on the lake I took a walk to the site of the deer kill I found a couple of weeks ago to see if any more evidence had appeared as the snow melted.  It hadn't, and in fact, things had gone the other way.  All evidence of the fur and digestive tract was gone.  The only thing left was the contents of one of the deer's stomachs (being ungulates, deer have four digestive compartments though only one is technically a stomach).

Stomach contents left on the ice.

Looking closely at the contents you can see why they need four stomachs to digest their diet - in winter it looks basically like sawdust.

No wonder no other animal will eat that - except maybe a beaver!  Every other part of the deer has disappeared.

I mentioned last week that I saw the first migrating ducks in one of those open spots near the outlet of Lake Wicwas, and this week there was a pair of Mallards dabbling in the Mill Brook where it spills over the dam on its way to fill up Lake Winnisquam.

Mallards probe the mud in the brook for food.

Soon ducks will be paddling all along the shoreline as those open spots enlarge, and the beavers won't be far behind.

One item to follow up on from last week's barred owl is another candidate for Camouflage Champion:

A great horned owl hides in a tree fork.  Photo by Debby Crowley.

This photo of a great horned owl was taken by friend and photographer extraordinaire Debby Crowley.  Owls certainly have perfected their camouflage technique.

And finally, one of my favorite sights (and smells) of the season:

The Chemung sugar stack is steaming!
(Though you can't see it, it was a-boiling.)

Maple syrup is on the way - I'm already thinking about fresh blueberry pancakes!

March 14, 2021: The Champion of Camouflage

I was walking along the Pemi Trail in Franconia Notch one morning this week when a silent streak of motion caught my eye.  Large wings then expanded and flared as a creature that could only be a barred owl settled gracefully a few dozen yards off the trail.  Though I knew where it had landed, a careful examination of the area could not locate the bird.  As I was about to give up, thinking I had hallucinated in the early morning, the owl turned its head, making just enough motion for me to find it, perfectly hidden among the grey and white hardwood forest.  By the time I dug into my backpack to pull out the camera, it had disappeared.  I figured it had flown off silently while my head was down even though I was trying to keep the area in my peripheral vision so I'd detect any motion.  

Trying to remember just what tree it was on, I studied up and down the trunk carefully, and yes - there it was, staring right at me.  I brought the camera up to my eye, and it was gone again.  Camera down, study the tree again, there it was.  I repeated this a couple of times and finally gave up trying to find the bird in the camera viewfinder, and just took a picture of the general area knowing the master of disguise would be there.  I had to zoom the picture way in to convince myself I really caught it.  Can you find the champion of camouflage in this forest scene?

How about now?

It's still surprisingly hard to make it out, though there's no doubt it's there.

The same photo, blown up.

A remarkably successful natural evolution on display.  Barely.  

I have a feeling these silent predators are eating quite well at the moment - as are all the local predators - because the gray squirrel population seems to be exploding.  I'm not the only one that has observed an abundance of gray squirrels around lately, though I haven't yet found someone that exceeded our count of ten squirrels under the feeders at the same time.  

All that motion squirming around on the ground reminded me that they are in the same family as rats....  At least we have trained them to stick to their own feeders and stay off those for the birds.

The squirrels have their own feeders to exploit.

Female squirrels are especially ravenous right now because they're pregnant and need extra resources to develop their young and prepare to nurse them.  The next generation will be born this month, blind and completely reliant on their mother for about five weeks (the father is off gallivanting with other females).  A litter usually consists of one to four young, with higher numbers produced when winter food is plentiful.  And if a mother thinks one of those hungry owls or another predator has a bead on its nest, it will move the litter to another location, carrying each of its young to a new safe house.  The whole process will be repeated again in late summer as they produce a second litter - perhaps we're on our way to another squirrel-adeggon this summer.

Those warm, sun-filled days this past week had me thinking about spring as the sun melted away a lot of snow and large puddles formed on top of the ice.

Even though there are still 21 inches of ice to be liquified it's not too early to be thinking about loon season (I saw my first migrating duck near the outlet of Lake Wicwas yesterday).  The Loon Preservation Committee has been preparing for loon season all winter long while watching them in their temporary home at the Atlantic Ocean.  In their latest newsletter they have a picture of one loon feasting on a culinary delicacy they can't enjoy in the Lakes Region:

Fresh lobster for dinner!  (LPC Photo)

I'd love to see how the loon is going to tackle that meal!  

If you don't receive the Loon Preservation Committee newsletters you can sign up for them here:  LPC Newsletter.

Another sign of what's to come:  Snowdrops are poking their heads up in warm sunny spots between the snow banks.

Snowdrops, the first flower of spring.

If however, you want winter to last a bit longer, fear not, you only have to travel a bit north to know that winter will be around many weeks to come.

Plenty of winter left at 3500' elevation in Franconia Notch.

The Franconia Range seen from the Cannon Cliffs.

Old Man Winter still has plenty of cards left to play.

March 7, 2021: Coyotes on the Prowl

Note:  This post has images that some viewers may find disturbing.  Viewer discretion is advised.   ; )

In like a lion, out like a lamb - March is here, crazy changing weather and all - and it certainly has started out like a lion with some of our coldest temperatures of the year and plenty of wind to go with it.  Mt. Washington recorded average winds of 86 mph and gusts over 130 mph on March 2nd; the low temperature for the day was -28F, and that's not the wind-chill (that would be -80F).  It was not nearly as wild around the lakes, but still pretty cold and the wind brought in squalls with enough snow to freshen things up and even allow some animal tracks to be found, including this weasel track.

The classic 2-2 track of a bounding weasel.

This closeup shows the double imprint where one foot lands almost directly over the other.

Each print is a double-print where the rear foot landed on top of, or slightly behind, where the front foot landed.  I couldn't follow the track for long because the wind had obliterated the tracks after a very short distance, but the immediate habitat and what behavior I did observe tells me it was a fisher.

There was also a plethora of mouse tracks running all over the new snow, scurrying from one hiding spot to another.

Mice like to travel quickly from one hole to another to avoid those pesky owls.  The largest tracks however, were those of the coyotes, out on the prowl for creatures of any size or shape.  

A coyote following along the shoreline,

and circling around something of interest.

Then heading off into the woods

to leave its marker.

Stumps, rocks, the middle of a trail - these are all favorite places for a canine to leave its mark, knowing  it will be readily noticed by visiting males and females alike.  

Those coyote tracks were left a couple of weeks ago, before the most recent snow, but they show coyotes have been traveling far and wide, both on and off the lake searching for food, and one morning this week, after a few inches of new snow, I came across evidence they had a successful night.

This digestive track can't be from anything other than a white-tailed deer.

It's one of the few parts of a deer the carnivores will leave behind.

It was an unusual situation.  I've come across deer kills on the lakes many times (see journal entries on January 21, 2012 and March 10th 2019) but it was hard to figure out just what happened here.  Clearly the kill was recent because the blood stains were still fresh.

Recent snow and fresh blood indicates a recent kill.

But there were very few tracks or evidence of a fight; everything must have been covered up by the snow the night before.  But why were the intestines exposed?  Were they warm enough that the snow melted on them as it fell?  And that doesn't really explain why some fur was exposed as well.  I could see some signs of struggle a few yards away on the shore line but other than these few remains of the deer, nothing.  

Fur on top of the snow.

I expect the carcass or least some stray bones will appear as the snow melts over the next few weeks.

Every time I see one of these deer kills it's disturbing even though I know it's part of the circle of life, and one deer killed will sustain the many animals that will partake of the feast during the difficult late-winter season, including fox, eagles, hawks, and crows in addition to the coyotes.  

A red-tailed hawk feasts on the carcass from a prior kill.

Even the mice and other rodents will chew on the bones to ingest the minerals they contain.  But it's still hard to accept.  So let's end on a brighter note:  Sunny days and blue skies.  Forget the coyote and dismiss the lion - the March lamb is on the way!

P.S.  If you were interested in seeing Beede Falls which I described last week, it appears the ice over the falls has started to collapse.