August 15: The Dog Days of Summer

Two weeks ago I mentioned the fruit of the black cherry trees was starting to ripen and they would turn from red to black if the birds and the bears didn't eat them all first.  Well, they better get busy because the chipmunks are after them too.

A chipmunk's cheeks stuffed full with black cherries.

A chipmunk's cheeks stuffed full with black cherries.

I was a bit surprised to see a chipmunk climbing around in the branches a good 15 feet above the ground, but evidently it has nothing to worry about because at one point when I startled it, it just let go and dropped to the ground bouncing gently off a couple of branches on the way down.  Their acrobatics in the cherry tree rival those of the gray squirrels on their winter feeder.

Representing Team Chipmunk in the Wildlife Olympics

I wonder if they eat the flesh of the fruit now and store the pits away in their dens for winter consumption.  And they're not just after the cherries but are harvesting blueberries as well; my brother took this picture of a chippy in the blueberry bushes in Canterbury.

Collecting blueberries in Canterbury.  Photo by Glen Powell.

I haven't seen the chipmunks in the hobblebushes, but something is eating that fruit as there are very few making it to the fully ripe black stage.

A few black hobblebush viburnum berries have survived long enough to turn black.

Another week of fishing and growing has seen our loon chicks molt all but a few remnants of their prior feathers.  With these new, denser feathers they're now able to compress the air out of them, allowing deeper and faster dives.  They almost look like small, pale versions of an adult at this point.

Jimmy has a just few tufts of baby feathers left on his tail.

After plentiful rain in July the weather has turned to classic New England summer:  hot, hazy, and humid.  This week was the pick of the summer so far for vacationing.  It's the kind of weather where you can spend all day in the lake and when you get out you're not cold even without drying off.  But all that moisture in the atmosphere makes for some hazy skies.  We went for a hike in Franconia Notch on Friday and with visibility only about 20 miles, the mountain ranges were looking like the Blueridge Mountains.

Hazy skies from the summit of South Kinsman.

On our way down from the Kinsmans we went by Lonesome Lake where lots of people were cooling off in the high altitude pond with Mount Lafayette in the background.

Lonesome Lake with the Franconia Range looming in the background.

Sunsets are like snowflakes - no two are ever the same - and with all that water in the atmosphere great sunsets keep coming.  

Even on a hot day of hiking, there are plenty of smiles in New Hampshire.

Summit of South Kinsman

The top of a mountain must have been the coolest spot in all of New England this week.