March 26, 2023: Old Growth Forests

I've known for years about a stand of old growth sugar maples in the Hamlin Town forest in Meredith.  The maple grove is noted on the trail map of the property and I'm always amazed at their size and age.  During a snowshoe trip on that trail this week my eye was caught by another very large tree, which on inspection, is a huge old American beech.  

American Beech

I didn't have anything to measure its circumference, but I estimated it to be about 65 inches.  

Beech has smooth gray bark in its early years but as it ages is becomes rough and cracked, so I know this is an old tree, but I'm not able to guess at its age, though the sugar maples here have been estimated at over 250 years old.  

Now my eye seemed to be tuned to looking up, and soon I noticed another large tree.

Yellow Birch

This I identified as a yellow birch based on its distinctive soft and peeling bark.  Unlike white (or paper) birch, yellow birch is a very long living tree.  Could this also be a couple of hundred years old?  Yellow birch is supposed to have a sweet, minty aroma in its leaves and twigs; it would be long climb to scrape a twig to smell it on this specimen.

Next to be found was a red pine:

Red Pine

Red pine, though not rare, have a specific habitat they prefer, dry and sandy, so I was a little surprised to see it here.  But based on the bark I'm pretty sure it's a red pine.

Red pine has a smooth, scaly, reddish bark.

The crown and needles are also rather distinctive, though the needles were too far away to examine.

All four of these trees were in close proximity to each other.  A short distance away I came upon yet another majestic tree, a towering white ash.

White Ash

Ash is another tree with a distinctive bark pattern which makes it identifiable in winter.

Diamond shaped furrows on white ash.

This is one of the largest ash trees I've seen and it may be largest I'll ever see as the emerald ash borer works its way through New Hampshire, destroying all the large ash trees.  Perhaps this one, hidden among all these other tall timbers won't be found by the invasive insect - wishful thinking, I know.

I didn't pass by the grandfather of all the trees in this forest on this excursion:  the ancient black tupelo (or black gum) tree that has been documented at 450 years old.  I understand why this tree and the sugar maples were not cut down years ago:  the wood of the black tupelo is so hard that no one wants to work with it, and the sugar maples were more valuable as a maple syrup cash-crop than as saw logs.  Why the other large trees are still standing is more of a mystery.  Clearly the area has been logged in the past based on the lack of mature white pine and hemlock.  Perhaps the wood of these trees just wasn't in demand when it was logged in the past.

Another question:  why hadn't I noticed these trees in my many prior hikes on this trail?  I'm sure the good visibility due to the lack of leaves on the trees was a factor, but I think the bright sun, blue sky, and white snow also made these handsome trees stand out on that pretty March day.

We may be well into March but there is still 17 inches of ice on the lake, and even taking out the four inches of porous frozen slush on top, that's over a foot of ice the March sun still has to bore through.  With a bit more snow yesterday, we've got a long ways to go before ice out.

Open water slowly works its way back from the outlet of Lake Wicwas.

March 19, 2023: Courting Doves

Mourning Doves are one of the most widespread of all birds, second only to the American Robin.  We've all seen them; they appear rather non-descript and I never paid them much attention until this week when some unusual behavior made me look more closely at them, and when you look closely, they really are rather elegant.

Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura)

What caught my eye was two of them sitting side-by-side on a tree branch performing some kind of ritual where they were bobbing their heads up and down together with their beaks locked with each other's.  If they weren't so calm about it I would have thought they were fighting, but this clearly wasn't the case, so I referred to Stokes, A Guide to Bird Behavior, Volume II, which has a chapter on mourning doves, and I discovered these are quite fascinating birds, and ones that are easy to observe based on their numbers and frequent visits to bird feeders.  

A pair of courting mourning doves.

Mourning doves have a courting process that is both intricate and observable.  It usually starts with a male bird sitting on a perch, puffing out its chest feathers, and then giving a long, loud coo.  This auditory announcement of its availability is followed by a dramatic flight display where it flies up perhaps a hundred feet in the air and then spirals downward, soaring on fixed wings.  That should attract some attention.  I didn't see this behavior - it's possible the pair I'm watching has progressed beyond this stage, but I'll keep watching for it.  

Apparently what I saw the two birds doing occurs after they have already paired up and is a pre-copulation action called "billing".  According to Stokes, the female bird puts its beak in the male's beak and they bob their heads up and down together.  

Though I didn't capture that behavior, I did later see them exhibiting other mating behavior that I was able to video.  I believe the male is strutting and showing off to the female, both its plumage and its physical abilities with all the bobbing and preening.  

Male and female mourning doves are very similar in appearance, with the male having a slightly more reddish breast and a darker cap on its head.  A female's head is also somewhat rounder than a male's.  

At one point during the week there were two other doves in the area and there was some aggressive behavior related to defending territory and/or mates.  I'll be on the watch for more of these behaviors this spring as well.

Mr. and Mrs. mourning dove on a snowy morning.

Shortly after I posted last week's journal on otters I took a ski over to Lake Winnisquam, and to my surprise, I saw otters!  Where the stream that flows out of Wicwas enters into the northern tip of Winnisquam, the current entering the lake had opened up a large expanse of water.

Where the Wicwas Millbrook enters Lake Winnisquam.

And where open water met ice, two otters were having a great time.  I don't bring my camera when I'm skiing so all I had was my phone, and one of the rules of nature is to not approach wildlife close enough to disturb them, so this is the best picture I could get; it shows one them sticking its neck up, probably having detected my presence.

I read just this week something that might explain how otters can safely travel under the ice at this time of year.  According to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, "In late winter, water levels usually drop below ice levels in frozen rivers and lakes, leaving a layer of air that allows river otters to travel and hunt under the ice."  I always wondered how they could dive under the ice and know they would be able find a place to surface before they ran out of air.

I watched the otters play for a while before I went on my way.  It was a beautiful day on the lakes.

There are more signs of spring's approach every day.  On Friday I saw my first migrating waterfowl of the year.

The first Canada goose, at the other end of the Millbrook, the dam at the outflow from Lake Wicwas.

And, you may remember the snowdrops had emerged back on February 12th.  Well those little plants are darn tough, because after being frozen, flooded, and buried in snow after they emerged, when the snowbank receded yesterday, they bloomed!

Snowdrops blooming behind the snowbanks on March 18.

Flowers blooming, birds courting, ice opening up - and two feet of fresh snow in the western part of the Lakes Region - all in the same week.  It's tug-of-war time in New Hampshire.

Spear Mountain in Danbury on March 15th.

March 12, 2023: Otters Like Snow Too

After a slow start the winter of 2023 is turning into a good one for snow fans, human and animal alike.  There's a deep snow pack now to protect the roots of sensitive plants and to provide refuge for the creatures that find safety in the subnivian zone.  Of course, predators such as foxes and owls whose survival depends on catching the animals that are now hiding under the snow aren't having an easy winter, and neither are large animals such as deer and moose that need to move around through the deep snow to forage for food.  But the one animal that truly enjoys the snow just for the fun of it is the otter.  On a snowshoe trip along the shore of Lake Wicwas we found lots of otter tracks and slides running all up and down over the slopes near the lake.

River otter slides up and down through the woods,

and onto the lake.

Even on the flats the otter would take a few hops and then slide a long way on its belly, sometimes paddling itself along with its feet.  

Along flat areas too.

We also found the holes in the ice where the otters had popped up from under the frozen lake.

A secret passage that lead to the lake.

Near one of the holes was an otter latrine where it did its business.

Otter scat is easily identifiable by its loose form and its contents of essentially 100 percent fish scales.

There's always a lot of fish scales in otter scat - because fish is almost their entire diet.

Based on the track I think there were at least two otters romping around in the snow together.  I don't get many opportunities to see river otters in person, but here's a picture of one I saw last April just as the ice was leaving the lake.

An otter belly-slides across the melting ice.

 

On our snowshoe trip we also saw a bobcat trail and even a spot in the snow where it had bedded down for a time to watch for any careless red squirrels that might come by for dinner.  No pictures of these however.  

In the midst of all this I received a reminder that motion towards spring continues regardless of the snow.  A Wicwas loon-watcher was at York Harbor, Maine this week and saw some loons in the Atlantic Ocean, and they have put on their summer breeding plumage! 

A common loon in York Harbor, Maine.  Photo by Lynne McMahon.

Lynne sent a couple of pictures - what an encouraging sight to see!  I always hope that someday, somewhere, someone will see one of our banded loons in the ocean so we'll know where they go in winter.

Like the otters, I've been having fun sliding on all this snow, including a fabulous trip with family up to Jay Peak in Vermont, where it is definitely still winter, and will be for many more weeks.

A wintery scene in northern Vermont, five miles from Canada.

There aren't many visible signs of spring around here yet, but the plumage on those loons proves that the season is coming.  

March 5, 2023: Snowy Steamboat

We spent the past week visiting family in Steamboat Springs, Colorado (thanks for being a great host VP!) where there is definitely snow - 360.5 inches this winter and counting.  In feet, that's 30.  Downtown Steamboat has quite a few sculptures along Main Street, similar to Meredith, though the art work in Steamboat is permanent, not rotating.  And this time of year, they aren't all that visible.  

There's actually a third person buried in the snow - that's what the two girls are looking at.

And maybe that's why we didn't see much wildlife - animals aren't moving around much.  Usually we see a moose or a deer, or at least a fox.  All we saw this week was a different variant of a junco and quite a few magpies.  I believe the junco variant was an Oregon junco, the most widely spread of the western juncos, but I didn't get a picture.  

Oregon Junco.  Photo courtesy U.S. Dept. Fish and Wildlife

Magpies on the other hand were seen often - they are not shy.  Like other members of the corvid family - crows and ravens for example - magpies are intelligent.  They know how to coexist with humans, take advantage of our actions, and are conscious of just how close they can get to us without being in danger.  Crows, which know they can eat road kill just over the white line on a highway without getting hit (usually) have this same ability to learn.

Right along the edge of the Yampa River in Steamboat, a pair of osprey have built a nest on a post set up for that purpose.

Osprey nest along the Yampa River.

But in the winter when the ospreys are off enjoying life in the tropics, a magpie has taken over the spot as its observation tower.

Magpie stationed as lookout.

Magpies perch in the highest spot to observe and defend their territory from intruding magpies.  They are large birds with long tails, and are quite flashy whether they're sitting or flying.

The ski resort in Steamboat has a set closing date every year so as not to interfere with the elk migration, but this year due to all the snow the closing date has been extended a week because those elk aren't going up the mountain until the snowpack melts down.  30 feet is a lot of snow.

We arrived back in New Hampshire just in time to enjoy our own local dump of snow, and it was a good one.  After a few hours of shoveling the snow we've had in the past week I took an excursion on the skis up behind Lake Wicwas on the Hamlin Trails.

It was a beautiful and warm day, full of cobalt skies and brilliant pristine snow contrasted with inky black streams.

Most of the trails weren't tracked out when I was there this morning, but it's so nice today that I expect the popular trails will be packed down by the end of the day.

It's going to be a great week to get out and enjoy late-winter activities in the long days and warm sun of March.

March is my favorite month of winter.