April 28, 2024: Spotted Salamanders and Vernal Pools

Spring is full speed ahead now and everywhere you look you see it, whether on land, water, or in the air.  I'll start on land with these beautiful Red Maple blossoms bursting out with a bright blue spring sky behind them.

Red Maple blossoms.

Red maples are among the first trees to push out flowers and leaves, and where there is a large stand of them the whole forest can take on a red tinge.  

Next onto the airborne signs of spring.  The early migrants are starting to arrive in the Lakes Region; on one morning walk I heard or saw no less than 19 different bird species including my first warbler, the yellow-rumped, a blue-headed vireo, and a hermit thrush.  There is no sound in the forest that's more comforting than the gentle, soothing flute of a hermit thrush.  The phoebes on the other hand, are anything but soothing.  Although a joy to hear, their call is loud, raspy, and somewhat harsh, and right now they are really making their presence known.  Mr. Phoebe will sit outside on those red maples by the lake singing his heart out. 

Eastern Phoebe in a Red Maple.

And it's great fun to watch them flit up to catch an insect then return to their branch to wait for the next tiny morsel to fly by.  I can't imagine how many gnats and black flies (yes, the black flies are out) they must consume every day.  He makes quite a racket in the process of letting every other phoebe in a wide area know he's there.

Now on to the water, and water is always a great source of life in spring.  One of Meredith's Conservation Commissioners sent me this video of water collected from a vernal pool this spring.  Vernal pools are critical bodies of water for certain animals because they dry out in summer which means fish can't live in them, making them essential breeding habitat for small animals that would be quickly gobbled up by fish, either as eggs or as small larvae.  In this video there are a number of different species, including amphibians, insects, and, I think, fairy shrimp, the larger animal in the center of the video near the end.

This description of vernal pools, provided by another commissioner (thank you RP) is from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy:

Vernal pools are hotspots of life and biodiversity. Certain species, such as spotted, Jefferson, and marbled salamanders, wood frogs, and fairy shrimp (small, hearty crustaceans), need vernal pools to complete their lifecycles. Although they spend most of their lives on dry land, these species would not be able to survive without mating, laying eggs and developing in vernal pools. For that reason, they are called “obligate” species, meaning they are required — or obligated — to use a vernal pool. Other species like spring peepers, snails, clams, spotted and Blanding’s turtles, dragonflies and caddisflies use vernal pools but can also survive in other wetlands. The animal life in vernal pools is also a food source for predators, including great blue herons, racoons and insects.

And as if that's not enough to appreciate vernal pools, look at this gorgeous salamander Linda discovered while gardening yesterday.

Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma maculatum)

The yellow-spotted salamander is a large mole salamander; this one was over six inches long.

Like most salamanders, the spotted salamander spends almost its entire life below ground, burrowing under large rocks, rotten logs, or under the leaf litter, eating slugs, spiders, insects, and algae.  They emerge for only a few days in the spring to make their way to a vernal pool to mate.  The mating ritual includes a dance routine by the male, which if successful, will result in a female following it to the water to lay her eggs.  These predator-free vernal pools are essential to the survival of these amphibians which are a rare treat to find.  We found this one under a large flower pot that spent the winter outside, and we carefully replaced the pot to restore its well-sheltered home.  

You can read more about vernal pools here. 

Speaking of vernal pools and water, a friend on the lake came across a neat poem titled "Lake Wicwas" which she sent to me. (Thank you SD!) 

Lake Wicwas

I glide my paddle through the water,
pull toward the island, the lilies
on the surface parting at the bow.
My friend up ahead marks the path,
I find clarity in what is no longer hidden --
the sand and the rocks, minnows, and a can.
Now the only ripples cast are our own --
no thought of the election, no screech
of the prophet or of the abyss.

I glide my paddle through the water
and follow her, the artist maker,
translator of earth, and the way, and yes,
we are kayaking Lake Wicwas,
crossing the earth and the water,
the surface written and revised
by the seen and the unseen.

We glide our paddles through the water.
The lake reflects the cloudless morning sky --
blue heron glides, her wings arched upward
as we slow and hover, floating
between island and shore,
and turn to what cannot be known.

What cannot be known.  Well said.  This is in a book of poems about New Hampshire's lakes, ponds, and streams titled "Water Ways" by William O'Daly with essays and photography by J.S. Graustine.  O'Daly lives in California, but Graustine is a Meredith local.  Here's a description of the book by publisher Folded Word Press:  

From the Connecticut Lakes to the Seacoast, Otter Brook to the Salmon Falls River, and the circumnavigation of Lake Winnipesaukee, the poems, essays, and photographs in this book celebrate New Hampshire’s gateways to “the most serene surface, the silence / of what we no longer remember: who we are, / to whom the loon calls across the emptiness.”

Innisfree Bookshop doesn't carry it, but you can find it at Folded Word Press.

I wonder if there's a poem in there about paddling on a beaver pond in spring.

April 21, 2024: First Wildflower

I noted my first wildflower of the year at Page Pond on April 16th, a Coltsfoot.  (I don 't count introduced species like crocuses and snowdrops.)

Coltsfoot, April 16

Like most things this year, it's ahead of schedule.  Coltsfoot usually blooms in the first week of May and the earliest I've seem them previously is April 29th.  I'll be looking for the Trailing Arbutus to bloom next.

The lake level continues to be high though it has come down quite a bit over the last few days.  The high water may be raising havoc with the Canada geese finding sufficient nesting sites.  I've watched pairs of geese tangling with each other, apparently one pair defending their nesting site from an intruding pair.

If you're boating on the lake in the next few weeks, be careful of floating debris in the water from the recent storm.  There are lots of logs floating just under the surface and several large trees still making their way around the lake including this large one currently stuck on the bottom down towards the dam.

Photos by Dean Cascadden.

There's also a lost umbrella base floating in the lake, looking like a white submarine with its periscope up.  If you recognize it let me know and we'll get it back to you.

Up Periscope.  (Note the log also in the picture.)

All the trees in the lake have been a bonanza for the beavers who are finding easy foraging for food without having to cut their own trees down.

Branches gnawed clean of their bark.

Calmly enjoying an easy meal in the lake.

Good news on the loon front:  Just yesterday I confirmed our northern banded-loon pair has returned for the summer.  Earlier I had seen the female alone and caught sight of her bands.

All four bands are visible.

This is the female of the pair that raised LuLu and Checkers last year; she was banded on Lake Pemigewasset in 2018 and has been on Wicwas since 2021 when she evicted our prior banded female.  Then yesterday a pair of loons came by and I was able to get a look at its white band with black dot to determine it's LuLu and Checker's father, as well as another glimpse of the female.  

You can just barely make out the male's band on its left leg.

So the 2024 loon mating season has begun.  We'll be monitoring the lake level carefully now to keep it as steady as we can which won't be easy as those beavers are already packing the dam with all those branches blown down.

One more pair of breeding animals before I end:  The wood ducks appear to have taken up home here, so keep your eye open in a few weeks for mother wood duck and what is often her large brood of chicks.

Mrs. Wood Duck on her morning tour of the lake.

Take advantage of these last few bug-free days to get outside - the black flies will be here way too soon.

April 14, 2024: Eclipse

Well, the eclipse of 2024 stole the show for this week, and perhaps this decade, but I'll first record the dates of some spring milestones for the journal.  I saw my first phoebe on Tuesday, April 9th, and heard the first wood frogs singing in the vernal pools that same warm evening.  On my first kayak trip of the year I found Canada geese nesting on an island, not in the marsh, because the lake level is so high their usual location in the marsh is flooded.  There should be more signs of spring to report next week.

So, the eclipse.  Certainly the northeast lucked out on the weather with perfect atmospheric conditions in northern New New Hampshire to observe the celestial event of the century.  Linda and I decided to take the trip up to Colebrook to get a full three minutes of totality during the eclipse, and it was worth every second of the drive up and back - all eight hours of it coming home.

I'll start by saying I found the people around us to be the most polite and jubilant large crowd I've ever experienced.  Even standing in long lines to get coffee everyone was happy and sharing stories.  I met one person who lives in Texas and was planning to watch the eclipse in San Antonio.  But when she saw the Texas forecast on Sunday, she bought a plane ticket to Boston and drove up to Colebrook that morning!   Even the drivers in the massive traffic jam heading home were courteous - everyone was still stunned by what they just witnessed, and the long drive gave us lots of time to ponder what we had experienced.

Having arrived early we found a comfortable spot in a large field with a good view and watched other  eclipse observers file in - the anticipation was building.  

The event started at 2:17 pm when the moon took its first bite out of the sun.  (The following pictures were taken with a solar filter on the camera.)

Over the next hour the sun was slowly gobbled up, the light dimming so slowly that my eyes adjusted and I wasn't really aware it was getting darker until perhaps 75% of the sun was blocked.  

The colors changed as the sun was covered, though it didn't have the same hue as a normal sunset.  Even with over 95% of the sun blocked the scene was still quite bright.

This was only about 30 seconds away from totality.

The temperature dropped and the wind picked up; I put on my coat.  As it got noticeably darker, the crowd got quieter and quieter.  The wind stopped.  Someone noted that birds were flying off to find a safe spot for the night.  Stars appeared.  There was a sunset on the horizon for 360 degrees as darkness loomed.

By the time there was just the smallest sliver of sun showing, the crowd fell silent.  

Then, a truly magical moment occurred - it was like a light switch.  According to Dr. Angela Speck, chair of the Physics and Astronomy department of the University of Texas at San Antonio, even at 99.9% partial eclipse, there is still at least 100 times more light coming from the sun than during totality, and when that last sliver of sun went instantly dark, the most fabulous ring of light appeared around the moon. 

The silence was burst with a huge cheer, gasps, hoots and hollers.  Safely taking off the dark glasses and filters from the camera and binoculars, the sight was truly astonishing.  Through the binoculars you could clearly see the red solar prominences that are produced by plasma, super-heated gases in the sun's surface which emit red light (think of the light from a helium-neon laser). 

Solar prominences, hot plasmas containing highly charged helium and hydrogen gas.

These don't show up well in my pictures but you probably saw excellent images from telescopes photographing the event.  During totality I took a couple of photographs with different exposure times to capture the corona which is the hot outer atmosphere around the sun, visible only during a total eclipse.  The longer exposures capture the dimmer parts of the corona farther from the sun while over-exposing the bright edge around the moon.  

This exposure was 1/15 of a second; the prior image was 1/250th of a second.

Just as quickly as totality arrived, it left.  In an instant we were blinded by a flash of just 0.01% of the sun; we had to look away, and it was over.  It was three minutes of magic, followed by another hour of the sun slowly returning to normal.  

The factors that came together to allow Linda and I and thousands of others to experience this celestial miracle are hard to fathom.  In addition to the weather, the size of the sun and moon, and their distance from earth, all conspired in this fleeting moment in of wonder.  There was more than one discussion about whether the nearly identical size of the the sun and moon as viewed from our planet is a highly improbable coincidence or whether there is some divine or scientific aspect to it.  Do these particular parameters have a correlation with the establishment of life on earth?  The natural world provides endless questions to ponder.  

It was only three minutes, but it's three minutes of my life that will be remembered; that image is burned into my mind forever.  

April 7, 2024: Temperature Shock

From 80 degrees to snow - this week's journal was supposed to be all about wildlife in South Carolina, but upon returning home Thursday night the local picture became the story.

Marion Lane on our arrival home from South Carolina.

Once we got north of Concord NH the scene looked like an Alaskan tundra with everything white and trees down beside the road for miles.  

We arrived to find over a foot of heavy snow plastered to everything, branches and trees down everywhere, and about half the people in Meredith without power including most homes around Lake Wicwas.  But that's better than some towns in the Lakes Regions which had 100% of their customers without electricity.  And many of us around the lake are still without power as of 9:00 this morning.

The heavy snow and wind brought trees down into the lake in multiple locations - I expect there will be more to be found as we get on the lake to explore.  This huge white pine and several hardwood trees were some of the casualties. 

There will be a lot of trail maintenance to do over the next few weeks.

Trail crews in Meredith will be busy this spring.

On the bright side, there were some signs of spring including my first loon sighting on Friday.  I also received a report of a pair of loons on the lake, so we're heading in the right direction. 

Enough of winter in April; now down south to South Carolina where we had another fabulous time in the low country with our great host, tour guide, and entertainment director.  We took walks along creeks, through swamps and old plantations, and of course along the Atlantic Ocean. These gave us the opportunity to enjoy wildlife much different from that in New England including dolphins, alligators, and anoles.  The most fascinating of these are the pelicans, truly bizarre birds with some amazing abilities.  Just floating on the water their unique physical attributes are immediately apparent with exception of not being able to see just how large their gular pouch is because it's all folded up under their beak.  

A pretty bird in its special way.

This photo, taken in Alabama and sent to me by a good friend (thank you PL!) shows the gular pouch in its full glory:

Soaring along in formation, often close to the water to take advantage of air pressure off the water, is when they are most elegant.

Flying in close formation over Shem Creek.

Other times they will use the currents and updrafts from the onshore breeze when it hits the dune line to facilitate their flight.  Wherever they are, they are an oxymoron of awkward beauty.

At feeding time they use powerful wings to gain altitude where they are able to see fish under water even with waves and reflections on the surface.  When they identify a school of fish they just fold their wings and let themselves plunge head first down into the sea.  

Target in sight.

Contact

Splash down

If they're on target that pouch swells with water and a number of fish which they swallow whole after letting the salt water drain out.  When the tide changes they know to congregate around the breach between Sullivan Island and the Isle of Palms (that's also where we saw dolphins) and when there's a big school of fish it's quite a spectacle to see.

The other bird I'll mention is the Anhiga, another ungainly bird with a long neck that it uses in a most unusual manner, stretching it out for no apparent reason.

I often see this behavior - is it a threatening position to scare me away?  Twisting its neck into a pretzel is just as interesting, but that makes sense for grooming or situational awareness.

The Anhniga, like a cormorant, will spread its wings out to dry them after diving for fish.

Sunbathing by a lagoon in the early morning light.

Other birds we saw were ones we'll soon find here in New Hampshire including yellow-rumped warblers, palm warblers, and bluebirds already feeding their chicks.

Papa Bluebird.

And Mama Bluebird.  That might be a tick!

Back in New Hampshire, April is always a time of change, and this year, everyone and everything will need to be resilient to make it through to May.

The crocuses didn't succumb to an April snowstorm, and neither will we!

Some other good news:  The forecast is for clear skies for tomorrow's eclipse.  Fingers crossed for this rare astrological experience!  

🌒