November 26, 2023: Ice & Snow, Needles & Birds

I had the good fortune this week to be walking the trails behind Lake Wicwas with a group of friends when we came upon some needle ice beside the trail.  The ground was warm and well saturated from recent rain and snow, and the night before was cold enough to freeze water exposed to the surface, providing the right ingredients for these cool crystals to grow.

Needle ice growing up out of warm, wet soil.

Once an ice crystal is formed on the bottom of a grain of sand, heat from below is transferred through the stone to the air which cools the water beneath it, resulting in more water freezing at the bottom of the crystal.  As the process continues the crystal grows skyward creating needle ice.   

Sand and small stones provide the heat path to start the process.  A few beechnut shells rode up on top.

Late fall is the time when conditions are right for these to form, and it's always a treat to find them.  

On cold, calm nights this week, interesting ice patterns were forming in other places too, such as on the surface of the lake in secluded areas.

These always remind me of Disney's Fantasia, and the fairies transforming water into ice to the music of Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers from his Nutcracker Suite.   I didn't realize those swirling ice creations were real until I saw these flourishes for the first time with my own eyes.  

Wednesday morning we got our first measurable snow, which thankfully was cleared out in time for the big Thanksgiving travel day.  And as if on queue, that morning the snow birds appeared - a big flock of them.  

Dark-eyed juncos, aka snowbirds.

They were happily picking seeds that were exposed where I had cleared snow from the road.  There are lots of hemlocks and a few while pines over the road here, so those are most likely what they were feasting on.  

We've all noticed how big the white pine seed crop was this year, as have the squirrels.  I came across this huge stash of white pine cones which a red squirrel must have collected this fall.  

A large cache of pine cones collected beneath a large Eastern white pine. 

Then, just a few feet away, were three more piles.

The pantry is strategically located around the dining table where
Mr. Squirrel can safely observe his surroundings while he dines.

This is quite a winter pantry - one squirrel won't go hungry this winter.  I'll try to remember to visit this spot a few times during the winter.

I hope the juncos and squirrels weren't the only creatures that feasted well this week.  I hope you too had a wonderful Thanksgiving with food, family, and friends - quiet, peaceful, and safe.

Happy Thanksgiving from Lake Wicwas.

November 19, 2023: A Farewell to LuLu and Checkers

Before I say goodbye to Lake Wicwas' newest loons, I'll mention another confusing bird moment I had this week.  We took a walk at Little Harbor in Portsmouth, which is also the site of Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion State Park.  

The Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion on Little Harbor in Portsmouth.

The setting is gorgeous and peaceful, with beautiful views over a well-protected inner harbor, yet with easy access to the open ocean.  It's plain to see why the first NH governor chose this site for his home.  

Little Harbor

Governor Wentworth didn't see bridges or lobster boats in his view.

The Little Harbor Loop Trail passes along a stretch of shoreline, goes out to a view point on the Piscataqua River, and travels through some mature forests.  It's a nice two mile walk with a lot of variety - there's even a kayak launch for paddlers.  You can find a map here.

Looking out over the bay we watched a flock of white gulls picking fish out of the water, and those are what presented an identification challenge.  The two birds that seemed the most likely candidates - the black-headed gull and the Bonaparte's gull - both have black heads, and these had white heads.  

Mostly white with a dark spot on the side of its head.

It took time with the field guides to find that in winter, both of those birds have white heads, and both have black spots as these birds did.  However, only the Bonaparte's gull has the black tail band, and that's only on a first-year winter bird.  

Black on wing tips, edges, and the end of the tail are clues.

Orange-red feet also pointed towards the Bonaparte's gull.

Orange-red feet are exposed here.

It was Harper & Rows "Complete Field Guide to North American Wildlife" [1981 Eastern Edition, Harper & Row Publishers] that provided sufficient detail for me to conclude they were Bonaparte's Gulls, and even still, I'm not certain I have it right.  As one of my friends said about last week's loon mystery, nature has a lot of idiosyncratic variation;  it doesn't read or comply with the field guides.  (Thanks for the support RB!)

One other observation I've had the past few weeks is actually a non-observation.  I haven't seen any signs of deer along my travels.  November is the time of the rut when deer are most active and I usually see rubs on hemlocks and scrapes on the ground.  But I did observe multiple signs of coyotes.

Very fresh coyote scat.

And another several days old.

The diameter of this scat is over 3/4" which indicates coyote rather than fox, which has scat less than 5/8" in diameter.  At first I thought the scat was full of hair, but closer inspection made we wonder if it's just grass.

Hair or grass - there are no bone fragments which I would expect to see if the coyote was eating rodents.

Could these two observations be related?  Are the coyotes keeping the deer away from this area?  Searching for answers, I explored a particular pinch point that focuses deer travel between two water bodies, and here I did find deer tracks in the mud.  So the deer are present, but perhaps staying off trails where coyotes travel and leave their scent.

Now it's time to close out the 2023 loon season, at least on Wicwas.  (A faithful loon watcher on Lake Winona -  thanks PH! - reports that one juvenile is still present there.)

This summer's loon breeding on Wicwas was one of calmest in memory and we all enjoyed watching this experienced pair raise their young.  

Both parents tending to their chicks.  Bands on the adults are visible.

That doesn't mean it was easy though, as the parents had to regularly fight off attacks from other loons as well as the occasional eagle.  But they had their act together; the female would hide the chicks safely against the shore while the big male went out to protect family and territory.  Even the siblings got along well with each other. Sometimes one chick will pick ruthlessly on the other, but these two got along nicely, often traveling and fishing together right up until the day they left. 

LuLu and Checkers, age 11 weeks.

Here's a short memory of the lives of LuLu and Checkers on Lake Wicwas.  

Thank you for the joy and beauty you gave us - travel safely until we meet again.

November 12, 2023: Woolly Alder Aphids

Lake Wicwas saw the first accumulating snow of the season this week and though it had mostly melted by today, it gave us a few days of soft, gray-scale November scenery.

November Gray

Earlier in the week one might have thought a strange erratic snow had already accumulated on some alder trees.

Snow?

I haven't seen this in several years and it's been almost a decade since I last spoke of it in the Journal.  These are insects, Woolly Alder Aphids, named because they use alder as their host tree, and because it looks like wool when they colonize a tree.

Woolly Alder Aphids on an alder tree.

Like other aphids, they live off the sap in plants, sucking the sweet, sugary juices of alder through the bark.  They secrete a white, waxy substance which they use to cover themselves as a defense mechanism - predators don't recognize them as an insect, and even if they do discover them, they find the waxy coating unpleasant to eat and leave them alone.  I brushed a bit of the coating off to expose them; I was surprised that it came right off with just a light brushing - it's not stuck to them much at all.  

What's hiding under that waxy barricade.

Here are few in my hand.  The really tiny ones are newly hatched aphids.

They have some interesting facets to their life cycle.  During the summer the females reproduce asexually - no male required.  That's when they build the large colonies on alder trees.  Then later in the year the females search out males to mate with, resulting in just a single egg, which will then generate a new colony of aphids.  This is thought to maintain diversity in the gene pool.  [Ref:  Michael J. Raupp, Ph.D, University of Maryland]

Before the snow fell this week we had some really nice weather to get out and savor the waning days of fall.  I had perhaps my last kayak of the year.

Sure looks like November.

It was a nice paddle even though I didn't come across any wildlife other than a few ducks.  We still might get a nice day later in November, or even December, so the paddle hasn't been put up for the winter just yet.  

Amy Wilson was also out on the lake last week and she did see wildlife, including this loon which sent us looking to understand its status.

A loon with perplexing markings.  (Photo by Amy Wilson.)

It has some aspects of a juvenile, but not the chevron pattern of one of this year's brood.  It is sporting what looks like a few white dots on its back, reminiscent of an adult's breeding plumage.  It also has an unusual black and white coloring on its beak, unlike either the black beak of an adult nor the white beak of a juvenile.  Referring to photos and descriptions from both the Loon Preservation Committee and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, I believe this to be either a non-breeding immature adult, or a molting adult transitioning to its winter plumage.  It could be one of our breeding loons, but more likely it's a visitor on its way to the Atlantic Ocean.

Tramping on terra firma around Lake Wicwas, I twice came across a flock of turkeys, but they are so aware of their surroundings that they heard me coming and just melted away into the forest before I could get a picture.  But Neil Crimins caught what is surely the same flock as it made its way right through his yard.

Our neighborhood flock of turkeys.  

I also took advantage of the nice days to walk in the Page Pond Town Forest.  I stopped by the new accessible trail and viewing platform overlooking the quarry pond on the Quarry Loop Trail - it's great!

The viewing platform and accessible trail on the Quarry Loop built by the Meredith Rotary Club.

I continued down the Yellow Trail, across the beaver dam, and returned via the Page Brook Trail.  On the way I passed by this huge old pine tree that lies just a few yards off the Yellow Trail.

One big old pine tree.

My final walk of the week was up Whiteface Mountain in the Belknap Range (not the 4000' Whiteface up by Wonalancet) after the snow fell.  

A wintery scene on the top of Mt. Whiteface.

November could be the definition of grayscale.

November 5, 2023: Beaver Scent Mounds

Here we are in early November and we just had our first frost at the lake.  And that was just barely, with frost fomring only in open areas subject to radiational cooling with a clear view of the sky.  Leaves on the ground and small plants had just a tinge of frozen ice crystals on their surfaces.

The first frost on November 2nd.

I was surprised to find ice in the shallow marshes around the lake where the surface had cooled enough for a skim of ice to form.

First ice on the lake. 

On a hike on Leighton Mountain in the Chemung area there were even a few icicles that had formed from water dripping off a ledge.

On that same ledge was an obvious cave where an animal was probably sleeping as we went by.

 Fresh dirt pushed out of the entrance shows it's an active den.

It looks like a nice warm and secure home deep in the hillside, though I don't know whose home it is.  It's in the right location for a porcupine, but there was no scat at the entrance, and no signs of trees stripped of their bark around the den.  It appears too small for a bear den, and too far from water for a racoon.  Fox like better hidden areas with concealed entrances.  So I'm guessing a bobcat lives here.  It's too far away for me to trek back and forth with a trail camera, but maybe this winter I can go back when there's snow on the ground and look for tracks.  

On a walk near the lake I noticed an area where beaver had been coming on shore apparently to mark territory, so I placed my camera there to see if I could catch the claimer of the land.  Sure enough, the very next night, at 1:30 am, the beaver appeared.

A beaver collects material for a scent mound.

The camera recorded a short video of it doing its thing.  It collected an armful of leaves and pine needles, and formed them into a small pile.  It then climbed over the pile and deposited its scent right on top.  The whole process took about 20 seconds.  

Beavers have a set of glands called castor glands that produce castoreum, a highly aromatic substance they use for marking territory.  (The strong smell makes it a common ingredient in cosmetics.)  If you turn the volume up you can hear the beaver release the castoreum at five seconds into the video.

One of my walks this week found me at a beaver pond which has created the right habitat for a heron rookery.  Their nests look like large tangles of sticks at the tops of dead trees.  

Three Great Blue Heron nests are visible in the treetops at the far side of the pond.

The dammed-up pond dammed flooded the roots of the trees, killing them, creating the ideal platform for herons to nest and raise their young.  Beavers create valuable environmental benefits for many animals including birds, amphibians, reptiles, and humans.

Another week has passed without any sightings of the juvenile loons LuLu and Checkers, so I think it's time to say they have left the lake.  We will never know if they return after their four or five years spent on the Atlantic Ocean.  My last sighting of them was October 21st.

My last picture of LuLu or Checkers.

In an interesting coincidence, October 21st is the exact same date of the last sighting of the chicks Coca and Jimmy in 2021.  Lake Wicwas has now successfully fledged ten loons over the past six years.

I'll close with one more autumn moment from my hike on Leighton Mountain, a pretty scene looking over Randlett Pond.

Randlett Pond.

A bit of fall remains, but the drab of November is almost here.