May 7, 2017

The cool, wet weather that has engulfed much of the country this week has certainly slowed the progression of spring.  As of today there is still barely a hint of lemon-lime below the low clouds hanging in the hills of New Hampshire's Lakes Region.

Only a few pale green leaves at this point

Clouds veil Crockett's Ledge

Some of the early flowering trees are putting out their blossoms regardless of the weather, and it being so cool we should be able to enjoy them longer than usual.  Dogwood, Hobblebush and Honeysuckle all made their debut this week.

American Fly Honeysuckle (Lonicera canadensis)

I also saw an interesting tree that I had never seen before, and it took me a long time to identify it.

The beautiful yet greatly conflicted Boxelder (Acer negundo)

I finally determined that it is a boxelder.  It seems to be a rather conflicted tree, called an elder, considered a species of maple, and with multiple common names that reference three different type of trees:  boxelder, boxelder maple, maple ash, and ash-leaved maple. [Ref:  Wikipedia]  The boxelder is not indigenous to New Hampshire but has been naturalized here and planted frequently as a shade tree due to its fast growth.  [Ref:  "Eastern Forests," Ann Sutton, Knopf, Inc, 1985]

Along with the budding trees come the insects that feed on them.  One of the prettier ones is the aptly named Spring Azure.

The Spring Azure (Celastrina ladon) blends into its surroundings when not flying

We saw several along the Winnipesaukee River Rail Trail between Tilton and Franklin.  It's a pretty blue butterfly when airborne and the inside of its wings are exposed, but when it lands it becomes almost invisible, even if it lands right by your foot.  Or, maybe, on your foot.

That's the toe of Linda's sneaker

It's a common butterfly this time of year in many habitats from woodlands to clearings to roadsides, and it feeds on the early flowering trees such as dogwood and viburnum.

With the spring runoff the Winnipesaukee River was raging with rapids.

The Winnipesaukee River along the Rail Trail, flowing at over 1900 cubic feet per second

Unfortunately, there are some less savory characters that also arrive to feed on the trees, including the Tent Caterpillars, which are plentiful now.

Tent caterpillars waiting for more leaves to feed on

Plants aren't the only victims of the arriving insects - mammals, including humans, are subject to the tiny deer tic (though actually arachnids, not insects) which have made their presence known.  These are so tiny it is best to use a proven bug spray on your shoes and clothing when you're out.

An arachnid in the palm of my hand

There has been a sighting of our banded female loon, and I just received an update from the Loon Preservation Committee saying that no, the banded loon seen earlier this spring on Lake Massebesic (see April 23 post) was not our loon.  But it is great that our pair has now returned!  They took a fishing tour through our end of the lake on Saturday, when I saw them for the first time.  But for several days prior a single loon, likely the same one that's been on the lake for three years now, has been living in the cove.  We watched it groom itself in hopes of looking sharp to a potential mate.

Be careful with that beak!

I took some video to show how it travels around in circles as it paddles with one foot while grooming its underside.

                           Grooming Video                  Swimming in Circles


And after all that hard work, a nice nap was in order.

A quiet afternoon means nap time on Lake Wicwas

I'm sure the trees are about ready to explode at this point, and just one warm sunny day is all it will take for them to burst out and paint the world green again.

Red Maple ready to explode

May 8, 2016

Happy Mother's Day!  We haven't made much progress toward spring this week as we've had cold and wet weather for days.  Even though the calendar says May, it has been a lot more "April Showers" than "brings May Flowers".  But everything is primed and ready to pop when we get that next warm stretch.

As the saying goes, it has been good weather for ducks, and there have been quite a few around.  Mallards are plentiful as always, but several pairs of wood ducks also appear to have taken Lake Wicwas as their choice to raise their families.

A handsome couple

A pair of female mergansers that missed the dating party earlier this spring have been hanging around, looking for love.

Where did all the guys go?

The cool weather has kept tic sightings down, but they are out there, tiny and difficult to see at this time of year.

A deer tic the size of poppy seed on a stalk of grass looking for a ride

He didn't find one  (R.I.P.)   (I wouldn't last long working for uber)

Other, more helpful insects are appearing as well, including this cool little Common Water Strider. 

Common Water Strider (Aquarius remigis)

It has enough mass to make dents in the water, yet it manages to stay dry, using the surface tension property of water to walk right on top of it.  The middle and rear legs have evolved to be very long and are covered with thousands of tiny hairs, the combination of which distributes its weight over a large area of water.  [Ref:  Ward, J.V. (1992). Aquatic Insect Ecology: 1. Biology and habitat. New York: Wiley & Sons.]  The short front legs are used to capture and puncture food which consists of spiders and insects that fall onto the lake.  [Ref:  Williams, D. & Feltmate, B. (1992). Aquatic insects. CAB International.]  They eat mostly live insects, but will consume dead ones as well.  So we can consider these beneficial insects, keeping down the insect population, as well as scouring up refuse that collects on the surface of the lake.  It's nature's miniature version of Mr. Trash Wheel.  (An innovative, automated solar-powered trash collector that can extract 50,000 pounds of trash a day from Baltimore Harbor - worth checking out if you haven't seen it.  Click on Mr. Trash Wheel above, or here.)

More of the summer birds are arriving every day to do their part in controlling the insect population.  The yellow-rumped warbler is one of the most abundant of the warblers, but will soon be near impossible to see, hiding high in the canopy of the trees.

Yellow Rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata)

After hearing the loons for quite some time, I had my first sighting.

There were two loons, acting like a pair, but a third was in the mix as well.  I haven't seen any leg bands so I don't know if these are our loons, transients, or perhaps hopeful residents-to-be.

After last year's sad story with the loons (see post from October 18), I hope our pair didn't decide to move on to a different neighborhood. 

October 27, 2013

Lake Wicwas saw its coldest night yet this season when the temperature dropped to 28 degrees on Friday night.  On these early, humid, cold fall mornings I'll try to seek out ice formations have developed over night.  There are usually still some colorful leaves that get nicely frosted around the edges.

And the hardy, low growing plants also often get decorated with the frost.

This year, I found a flower still blooming - a clover blossom.

Ice Crystals on a Clover Blossom

The tiny structures on the flower allowed some extraordinary cystals to grow, probably seeded by those structures, and then additional molecules fell into place in the crystal lattice.

Chemistry in action!

Hopefully the cold weather will finally kill off the undesirables - biting insects that it.  I thought tic season was well behind us, but I had this nasty visitor come home with me.

Deer Tic

The most disturbing part is that this is a Deer Tic, which I have not see before at Lake Wicwas.  I know they are in the area, but this is the first one I have seen myself.  Maybe it's fate - it was on the same trip where I saw a couple of deer grazing out on one of the islands.

I haven't seen many beaver trees cut down around the lake yet this fall, but there is some very recent action at the beaver dam on the Blue Trail that connects to the Yellow Trail in the Hamlin/Eames/Smyth area.  This cut is right next to the trail, and the beaver didn't calculate his angles well, as the tree got caught up in the branches of a neighboring White Pine.

It had tried to free it by dragging the trunk away from the stump, and when that didn't work, it tried cutting off another section.  That didn't solve its problem either, and it has been working on cutting off a few more feet (cut section floating in the water).

I felt badly for it, and it was going to fall across the trail eventually anyways, so I gave it a hand and cleared it off the snag so it fell on the ground.  I plan to go back to see if the beaver returns and drags the tree away.

In another beaver clearing that was cut two years ago, (October 23, 2013 post) all the stumps now have fungi growing on them.  It's interesting how effective fungi are at distributing their spores so well that almost every stump has become a host.  These will help breakdown and decompose the stumps more quickly.

Fungus on a two-year old Beaver Stump

One more shot of the ice crystals.  Soon enough we won't have to go looking for these!