September 26, 2019: Lake Umbagog

This week found us up north, paddling at Lake Umbagog, a first time for me.  Ever since seeing Willem Lange feature the lake on Windows to the Wilds many years ago, we’ve wanted to experience this storied lake.  It is a special place.

The morning fog lifts, revealing Lake Umbagog.

We’ve been to the Colebrook, Errol, and Dixville Notch area before but had never been on Lake Umbagog or visited the Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge; both are wonderfully protected natural areas with beautiful paddling, hiking, and camping.  Umbagog Lake State Park is a peaceful campground right on the shore of the lake.

The waterfront at Umbagog Lake State Park.

That’s where we rented a canoe for a day of paddling on a serenely quiet September day.

On our excursions we saw many of the same animals we see here in the Lakes Region including moose, herons, eagles, and ducks, but we did see one bird I’ve never spotted before:

Greater Yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca) in Lake Umbagog.

According to the guidebook the greater yellowlegs is identified by a large neck and a beak longer than its head, while the lesser yellowlegs has a shorter neck and a beak shorter than its head.  Both the greater and the lesser yellowlegs are noted as rare species even at Lake Umbagog and are only seen in America during migration from their breeding grounds in boreal bogs far north in Canada.  We were fortunate to find one migrating south, taking advantage of the low water level in the lake.  The park ranger I spoke with estimated the lake is five to ten feet below where it should be at this time of year.  This unexpected sighting was the nature highlight of the trip!

We also hiked along the Magalloway River and up to The Roost in the National Wildlife Refuge.  Something that struck me is how fortunate we are to have so much undeveloped land at the western side of Meredith which supports so many New Hampshire species.  Of all the animals featured in the Lake Umbagog National Wildlife brochure, all are present right here except the black-backed woodpecker, which is perhaps a good thing since they prefer burned down forests.  We're at the very southern edge of their range, so we probably won't see them here again as they'll move north with the climate.

Being near Dixville Notch we had to hike up to Table Rock at the very top of the notch, a hike we hadn’t done for almost exactly 35 years.  

The east side of Dixville Notch from Table Rock.

The Balsams, currently closed.

We also hiked up to “The Roost” in the wildlife refuge, and both hikes were rewarded with great views and some early foliage.

The Roost in the Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge with the Magalloway River below.

If you're looking for some early fall color this week, try north of the southern notches (Franconia and Crawford) this week as the trees should be starting to turn there.  

At the highest point of Dixville Notch, on top of Table Rock, there was this hardy plant surviving, even thriving, on the thin soil in that harsh environment:

Lingonberry on Table Rock.  (Vaccinium vitas-idaea)

This is known as lingonberry, cowberry, and mountain cranberry.  In the past two weeks I’ve seen cranberries growing in two highly divergent habitats:  this one in the alpine tundra, and the cranberry viburnum (which botanically, isn't a cranberry) in the wetlands at Hawkins Brook in Meredith. 

You’ll find lingonberry growing in the Alpine Gardens on Mount Washington too – that’s just how hardy this plant is, though a single plant may have taken decades to grow to its present small size.  Its low profile means it’s protected by snow cover from the worst winter elements but it also means it has a short growing season - snow will be falling on Mount Washington any day now.  The lingonberry on Table Rock was growing right where Linda is standing:

Open ledges above Dixville Notch.

These cranberries are edible, though tart.  The plentiful fruit on these plants shows the abundant sunshine available on the top of the ledge; lingonberry will grow in shade but won’t produce fruit.  Picking lingonberry is problematic because one can’t walk among the plants without destroying the fragile habitat with one’s footsteps.  Pick a few beside the trail if you’re hiking above timberline, but don’t stray from the trail, as a single footstep can destroy a hundred years of effort by plants growing in this harsh environment. 

What a diverse geographic location up near Lake Umbagog – arctic tundra cranberries and wading shorebirds found within 10 miles of each other.

I’ll share a less picturesque sight from Friday back here in Meredith.  On a run up Chemung Road after Friday’s rain I saw this muddy stream flowing under the road from the Hamlin Town Forest towards Lake Winnisquam.

I was curious as to the source of the silt in water coming from conservation land so I followed upstream and found it was still brown at the bridge at the Hamlin Trail head.

But just above the bridge, at the confluence of two streams, I found the source of the mud was not the conserved land, but rather the drainage from Chemung Road and Tucker Mountain Road. 

Muddy water on the left meets the clean water coming from the Hamlin Town Forest.

Continuing up Chemung Road, the runoff was clearly coming down from Tucker Mountain.  

This stream, after crossing Chemung Road and then Camp Waldron Road, empties into “Swamp Pond” before entering Lake Winnisquam so the silt is probably left in the wetlands before it gets to Winnisquam, but it can’t be healthy for those wetlands.  This is a good example of why the Winnisquam Wetlands Network is focused on improving road drainage within the Winnisquam watershed (which also includes the Wicwas watershed).  With a long term commitment and a lot of hard work from a coordinated effort by multiple organizations, our local streams can be returned to the same clear water and wildlife habitat that Dixville Notch enjoys.

A crystal-clear waterfall in the flume at Dixville Notch.

September 19, 2021: The Sun Also Rises

Summer time brings the most spectacular sunsets, often presented thanks to copious amounts of water vapor in the summer air, and sometimes with a supporting cast of smoke from fires in the west that drifts in our direction in the upper atmosphere.  But early fall is my favorite time for sunrises, and not just because the sun comes up at a more reasonable hour:  sunrise was at 6:28 am yesterday, shortly before I saw the first rays of the day scrape the top of the hill that contains Crockett’s Ledge.  

Yesterday's first light filters through the morning mist.

In another month the sun will rise after 7:00 am as we lose almost 20 minutes of daylight each week as we approach the autumnal equinox.  The next few weeks - before sunrise is set back again by the end of daylight savings time - is my favorite time to climb up Crockett’s in the dark to watch the sun rise over the hills to the east. 

Sunrise from Crockett's Ledge.

If you decide to experience it for yourself, just be on the watch for bears, as I once had an encounter with a bear and two cubs heading up there for the sunrise.

One of my favorite aspects of learning about all the different forms of life in the Lakes Region is knowing what something is when you come across it, sometimes where you least expect it.  One day, opening our mailbox, I saw this stuck to the top of the inside.

An egg sac that didn't arrive via the USPS.

Having just learned about pirate spiders this summer (see Plundering Spiders) I immediately recognized it as a pirate spider egg sac.  Knowing what it is, and that’s it’s not going to hurt me (or the mail person) I’m comfortable letting it be and watching to see if I’ll find any eight-legged scallywags scurrying through the rigging on the mailbox.

On the subject of spiders, this is a good time of year to spot all the bowl-and-doily spiders living in our fields and meadows.  

A bowl and doily spider web saturated with morning dew.

These clever spiders are present throughout the summer but their double, bowl-shaped webs are most noticeable on misty mornings when the heavy dew condenses of the threads of their web.  Their secret to survival is the two-layed web.  They live on the lower web (the doily), protected from predators by the upper web (the bowl).  They lie in wait for an insect to fall, fly, or crawl into the bowl, at which point they sneak up on it from below to bite and inject venom into the unexpecting prey.  The female builds the nest, and the male may live in her house, participating in the capture and the consumption of the food her domicile provides. 

September so far has blessed us with wonderful late-summer weather - nothing even close to a frost yet - with just a few hints of color starting to show in the trees around the Lakes.

Tree tops are starting to turn on the hills west of Lake Wicwas.

I was farther north up on Mount Chocorua this week and even in the White Mountains there’s very little foliage changing.

The Three Sisters with Mt. Chocorua on the left.

A flash of red on Carter Ridge coming down from Middle Sister.  (Mt. Washington is in the distance.)

It's time for a loon update.  Coco and Jimmy are still here, fishing on their own, though one of them, presumably Jimmy, is still often found close to mom and he continues to make a somewhat whiny  sound as he begs mom to catch him a fish - I can hear it on a quiet day carrying far across the cove.

Jimmy nags mom for a meal.

They are a couple of mighty fine looking birds, and we should still have many weeks to enjoy them.

They'll be here to watch plenty more sunrises this fall.

September 12, 2021: Laverack's Berries

I’ve walked the Laverack Nature at Hawkins Brook many times now - most recently with Linda, my mom and my sister - and each time I've noticed something new and different.  This time of year there are quite a few shrubs or low trees that are covered with berries of various colors:  red, orange, green, and blue.  Most of them I didn’t recognize, the only one I did was winterberry, so I took some pictures and spent some time back home working on identifying them.  The one with bright red berries I decided is cranberry viburnum, also called highbush cranberry. 

Cranberry viburnum  (Viburnum tribolum)

Because the foliage looks like maple leaves (trilobum -> three lobes!) I thought it might be maple-leaf viburnum, but they have dark blue berries; I eventually came upon cranberry.  Plus, the habitat of cranberry virburnum is wetlands which is where they are in Hawkins Brook, whereas maple-leaf viburnum is found in forests.  The cranberry-like appearance gives the plant its name, but they are not cranberries.  The fruit however is edible, juicy and sour and with large seeds (that are not edible).

They are used in jellies and jams as well as cooked into a sauce for hardy meat dishes such as venison.  I didn’t try them, but if they’re still there on my next visit perhaps I’ll sample a couple, though after my prior experiment with beechnuts, I don’t hold much optimism. 

So, beechnuts.  After I collected a few nuts from under a beech tree a couple of weeks ago (see August 29), I let them dry as recommended and then opened up the small, triangular inner seeds.  I was quite disappointed.  Out of the 16 seeds I had, only three contained any kind of nut meat in them and only one of these was of appreciable size. 

My harvest of beechnuts after drying.

The contents of those nuts.

The entire harvest.

Four of them contained little tufts of fuzz that looked like feathers.

Perhaps these are seeds that didn’t get pollinated.  The rest of the seeds were empty.  So this brings me back to my theory that the squirrels ate all the good ones, and left only the rejects on the ground for me.  But I did try the sorry little nuts I had since I had gone through the effort, and I can say they did maybe taste like nuts, perhaps between a pecan and a filbert.  But there was so little to chew on I really don’t feel I have much to offer.  In the end, that excursion into foraging didn’t work out so well; maybe cranberry viburnum will be better. 

In my travels this week I found several other berries, some at Hawkins Brook as I mentioned, and others I found while monitoring the Marion conservation easement .  This latter area had mountain ash and another new plant I had to look up.

Virginian creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia)

Though I didn’t recognize this shrub, the distinct leaves in groups of five made identification easy once I came upon it in the field guide.  The guide mentions Virginia creeper often grows along stone walls, and that’s exactly where I found it; the plant is a vine which can attach to stone or masonry to climb.   It’s a member of the grape family though the fruit is not edible, at least to humans – it is a valuable food source to many birds.

If you’ve been around the lakes early in the day you’ve noticed that morning fog is a common occurrence now, with cold air and warm water conspiring to create a ghostly scene. 

But it burns off quickly as the late summer rays beam down and heat the atmosphere to a temperature above the condensation point.   By mid-morning that clear blue September sky is revealed.

Scrub oak (Quercus ilicifolia) along Lake Ossipee in the Ossipee Pine Barrens

I've been told acorns are edible too, but I'm not ready to try them yet!

September 5, 2021: Teenage Loons

Mother nature is letting us know that September is here even if we don't look at a calendar.  The days are still longer than the nights but she's giving us plenty of clues that the equinox is approaching, the most evident signs being served up by the flora around the region.  

Goldenrod blooming.

When the golden rod lights up the fields and the edges of the roads we know the days are becoming cooler.  Often intermixed with goldenrod are several varieties of wild asters.

Calico Asters.

These calico asters have tiny white blossoms that look like miniature daiseys and though the centers of these are yellow they can also develop a delicate lavender color.  

These yellow and lavender asters were seen last year in early October.

Another hint is coming from the trees.

Red maple (See the spider web?)

The red maples are always the first to betray the hopes of summer by exposing their true colors hidden from us for the past several months.  I often see them turning first near bodies of water and thought wet roots caused their early color, but I recently heard a repuatable source report that red maples at high and dry location start to turn color at the same time as those near water.  I do remain convinced that weak subjects turn earlier, supported by the fact that damaged or broken branches will start turning red in July as the nutrient flow to the leaves is restricted, slowing the process of photosynthesis.  

Animals are also telling us the season is progressing, including our two loon chicks which are certainly acting like teenagers at this point.  One of the chicks (Coco I think based on behavior - I can't tell them apart visually any more even when they are side-by-side) has been expressing her independence, spending time away from mom and her brother. (Remember, we don't really know the sex of either chick).  

One day this week she spent a long time on her own doing her morning preening.  She would slap her wings strongly against the water, sputtering along in the lake for several yards with water splashing all around her.  Then she'd preen her back feathers followed by rolling over with her belly up to work on her bright white belly feathers.  Part of what she was doing here is taking oil from her oil gland and spreading it over all her feathers to provide waterproofing for them.  Finally she would stretch up high in air and spread her wings, give them a shake to realign her feathers, then settle back into the lake.  For about 15 seconds.  Then it was lather, rinse, and repeat.  This went on for quite a while until she moved out of my sight.  This was all observed far away through binoculars so I have no pictures to share.  But another day when the family was together I did get a picture of one of the chicks spreading its wings, and wow, they have quite a wingspan now.

As big as they are, they are still happy to have mom prepare a meal for them.  

Mom cooks up breakfast.

This week I broke one of the rules of wildlife observation.  Usually when I come across an animal in its habitat I try my best to not disturb it.  This isn't possible with animals like deer which are so attentive to their surroundings that they almost always detect me long before I see them.  But when I come across a turtle sunning on a log, or a heron fishing in the marshes I try my best to sneak in a picture and then glide by quietly without interrupting its feeding or its warming of its body.  But I will make an occasional exception.

One knows what any bird will do when it perches for more than just a moment.

My sending this heron on its way gave me a chance to get a good look at its large body and strong legs which are usually hidden beneath those stupendous wings. 

There's a couple of nice drumsticks.

Heron don't really show many changes as summer advances since their young don't leave the nest until they look almost adult-like.  But there are plenty of other signs that summer is waning. 

Winterberry fruit is starting to ripen.

Winterberries will become a brilliant red and last throughout the winter as the animals slowly consume them, apparently preferring other food sources before turning to winterberry.

Finally, I want to share this great photo a friend took on Friday of  ten deer swimming in Lake Winnipesaukee from Mark Island to Bear Island.

Even the deer are on the move.  Photo by Rick Page.

Note there are a couple of young bucks in that herd.  Thanks for sharing Rick!  

It may be getting cooler, but that means some of the best outdoor activity weather of the year is just ahead!