May 17, 2026: Busy Beavers

A beaver dam holds back the large pond in the Sherman Easement at Page Pond.

I was out with the trail crew on Tuesday morning doing winter clean up and spring brushing of the trails at Page Pond.  One team worked on the wetland loop, while I was on the team that patrolled the Brook Trail and the Beaver Pond Trail, the later of which is living up to its name.  Beaver activity is evident by cut trees and the well maintained dams.  (There are several dams visible from the trail, including a series of dams along the stream that drains the large beaver pond on the Sherman Easement).

For food, beavers prefer deciduous trees with nutritious bark and low tannins and noxious chemicals:  aspen, birch, maple.  They get less picky when food is in short supply, and they'll cut down almost any tree for use in dams and lodges.

I think this is an Eastern Hemlock

Their well constructed dams kept the pond full even with our dry spring (until later in the week).

Much of the right had side of the pond is a dam.

I would have been interested to see what the pond looked like after we received 2.75" of rain on Thursday.  The Beaver Pond Trail is especially beautiful in spring when many wild flowers bloom along the trail, and both purple and painted trillium are blooming right now.  The trail is most easily accessed from the Blueberry Hill Road Trailhead.

Painted Trillium

Lake Wicwas rose about 11" as a result of that storm, and low-lying areas of the shoreline are flooded.

+12" at the Wicwas Dam on Saturday.

On my check around the lake, I came across quite a bit of beaver activity on Wicwas too. 

These are also hemlocks.  The bark and cambium were removed from most of them; only the one on the far right was cut down and taken away.  Trees with bark removed all the way around will likely die.  If you'd like to learn more about beavers, here's a fun, two-minute video from NH Fish and Game that a friend sent me. (Thanks DM!)

Beaver aren't the only animal munching on trees.  Early in the week I saw that the Hobblebush Viburnum were starting to bloom.

Hobblebush Viburnum

These large flowers last a long time and transition through multiple stages of flowers and fruit.  However, all the flowers and most of the other buds and branch tips on the entire stand of hobblebush were soon cut off.  A few days later I found where they had gone.

A fresh pile of deer droppings near the viburnum.

Those hobblebush flowers have been processed into fertilizer to nourish the next generation of forest plants.  Deer right now are feasting on plentiful tender, new spring growth, especially does which will soon be giving birth to one or two fawns.  

Here's evidence of one more animal that feasts on trees, and not one we're fond of.

Emerald Ash Borer damage.

The Emerald Ash Borer is an invasive species that has decimated the ash trees in North America.  The larvae bore under the bark and feed on the cambium just like the beaver, and once the tree is girdled, sap carrying water and nutrients can no longer pass from roots to leaves and vice versa.  You can see this tree is right beside the Yellow Trail in the Hamlin Town Forest; it was cut down after it died to keep the trail safe.

I'll end with a small bird report - a really small bird, the Ruby-throated Humming bird.  A couple of friends put up a hummingbird feeder with a camera built into it which automatically records both still shots and videos whenever a bird comes to the feeder and triggers the motion sensor. 

Photos by Pam Hunt.

Being within inches of the birds, the camera captures a lot of detail.

In the video below you can see how rapidly it cycles its tongue in and out, and how fast it breaths - about 4 breaths per second - by the way its abdomen vibrates while it's feeding.  Turn up the volume so you can hear it chirp when it first lands.

Here's a slow motion version where you can see its tongue, and get a glimpse of its wings which are flapping about 50 times per second.

This is a fun camera - thank you Pam and Bob for sharing!

P.S.  Remember that as lake temperatures rise, the concern of cyanobacteria rises as well.  The Lake Winnipesaukee Alliance is sponsoring an open event on June 17th at the Meredith Community Center for people to learn more about how to deal with this increasing threat to our lakes.  It runs from 6:00 to 8:00 pm; you can learn more about the event and the cyanobacteria threat here.

May 10, 2026: Spring Multimedia Show

In addition to the spring warbler invasion that's serenading us with the joyous sounds of nature, we're now being treating to an influx of visual beauty as spring flowers erupt everywhere.  It's nature's live, multimedia show in full 360 degree non-virtual reality!  Last week the tiny Trailing Arbutus provided the trailer with the first blooms in the forest, and this week, the main event is on, starting with a large and showy shrub on display throughout the Lakes Region.

Serviceberry (aka Shadbush)

Serviceberry is widely spread around lake shores as well road sides, especially in damp damp soils.  The tree above is in Chemung State Forest along Chemung Road.  

In sunny spots, violets are blooming, both the Common Blue and the Sweet White.

Common Blue Violet

Sweet White Violet

A walk through the field at Page Pond Town Forest revealed Wild Strawberry joining the cast as well.

Wild Strawberry

High up on the summit of Belknap Mountain, a lone elderberry bush was just starting to come on stage to display its purple flowers.

Red Elderberry

I've had reports of Bluebead Lily flowering, but in the Belknap Range, they weren't quite far enough along, at least as of Thursday.

Bluebead Lily about to bloom.

They are probably in bloom by now, because this is a magical time in the New Hampshire forest.  The days are long - over 14 hours between sunrise and sunset - but leaves aren't yet on the trees, so for a very short period, direct sunlight shines down onto the forest floor.  The woodland flowers thus have a brief window after snowmelt to sprout, photosynthesize, and put out flowers, before the curtain closes and they are immersed in deep shade for the next five months.  

There was a surprising guest appearance on my hike in the Belknap Range:

Red Eft

I didn't expect to see an eft this early in the year, especially on a cool and partly cloudy morning at elevation.  It was resting on an exposed piece of granite which was being warmed when the sun shone down around the clouds.

The sound track to accompany this week's multimedia presentation was provided by Black and White Warblers, Ovenbirds, Black-throated Green Warblers, Bluebirds, Common Yellowthroat, and many more.  I heard nine species in the Belknap Range, and I participated in a bird walk sponsored by the Meredith Conservation Commission at Page Pond Town Forest yesterday, where, under the expert guidance of Dan Mullarkey and Kelly Hanson, we observed 20 different species.  My favorite was the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker which we heard several times.

A Yellow-bellied Sapsucker seen on yesterday's bird walk at Page Pond.

Back on Wicwas we had a huge flock of Yellow-rumped Warblers at the lake for several days, feeding on caterpillars on the trees.  

Yellow-rumped Warbler on a broken maple branch at Lake Wicwas

There are also dozens of Tree Swallows zooming all around the water picking off insects on the wing.  They are too fast for me to capture their acrobatics, but our pair of Eastern Phoebes gave me nice show right at the house. 

Spring is in full swing now, and there will be many more birds and blooms to look for in the coming weeks!

                                                     

  Happy Mother's Day!  

                                                     

May 3, 2026: Boneyard Beach

During our visit to South Carolina last week, we went on an excursion to Capers Island, the southern tip of 66 miles of protected barrier islands which starts just north of Isle of Palms.  We walked a long stretch of the shoreline facing the open Atlantic Ocean, through a habitat called a boneyard beach. 

The name stems from the dead, weathered tree trunks that resemble dried bones.

These are mostly oak trees, who's strong wood can survive the harsh elements for many years as the ocean advances.  There are also palmetto trees on these shorelines, but due to their soft wood, they are worn away soon after the ocean descends upon them. 

Live palmetto trees at the highwater mark with recently killed trees in the intertidal zone.

Barrier islands on the east coast are losing an average of 15 feet of land per year.  Some years they lose none, others they may lose 50 feet or more. Despite the efforts to hold back erosion on developed islands such as Isle of Palms, each time we visit, the ocean has clawed its way closer to the structures on the beach.  

While in the lowcountry, I saw a couple of shorebirds I haven't seen before, both of which do make appearances on the New England Coast.  The most interesting was the American Oystercatcher.  This is the only bird in our area that has the ability to open hard-shelled mollusks such as oysters, the bird's primary food source.  And an oyster bed exposed at low tide is exactly where I found it. 

American Oystercatcher searching an oyster bed for a good prospect.

Oystercatchers roost away from the shoreline at hightide, but as soon as the tide goes out enough to expose the oyster beds, they swoop in to look for vulnerable oysters.  The preferred method to consume an oyster is to thrust its sharp beak into a slightly open oyster and immediately sever the muscle that the bivalve uses to clamp its shell shut. 

Oysters exposed at low tide.  (I ate a few of these last week!)

Once severed, it's easy pickings to pluck out the good parts.  This process however, isn't risk-free.  It the bird misses the hinge muscle, the mollusk can clamp down on the bird's beak holding it in place, and if the oyster is securely attached to the ground, the bird will be held captive until the tide rises, which could mean the demise of the bird.  A second, safer, but more labor intensive method, is to hammer away at the oyster until the shell cracks, at which point it can reach in to cut the muscle and open the shell.  [Ref:  Cornell Lab of Ornithology]

The other new bird I saw was a Whimbrel, which doesn't spend much time on the New England coast.  It stops here only to refuel on its way between breeding grounds in the arctic and its summer domicile anywhere from the mid-Atlantic to the southernmost tip of South America.

Hudsonian Whimbrel on  the mudflats of Pitt Street Bridge 

The whimbrel uses it equally highly adapted bill to consume a different form of seafood, crustaceans, with its preferred dinner being the fiddler crab.  It uses its long, curved beak to probe down the fiddler crab's tunnel in the mud to extract it, often eating it whole, but perhaps removing its claws and legs first.  [Ref:  Cornell Lab of Ornithology]

Fiddler crabs in South Carolina

One more animal I'll mention is a mink that we saw running along the edge of a saltwater marsh at the Pitt Street Bridge.

A mink still damp from its swim in the saltmarsh.

It was behaving just like the minks at Lake Wicwas which travel the shoreline of the lake, moving back and forth between land and water using their excellent swimming and running abilities as they hunt for food.

Back home in New Hampshire, I was happy to see the Trailing Arbutus had bloomed.

Trailing Arbutus - the sweetest little flower you'll ever meet.

These incredibly sweet smelling flowers are the first of the deep forest flowers to bloom, and will soon be followed by many others.  It's also called the Mayflower, supposedly named by the Pilgrims in the first spring after arriving in Plymouth, and named for the boat that brought them to America.  It was voted the state flower of Massachusetts by the school children in 1918.

The red maples were just starting to put out their pretty red flowers as we left New Hampshire to head south.

Red maple flowers.

By the time we returned, small leaves and seed stalks had formed.

One more warm day and I expect lots of things will pop!