May 16, 2021: How Are Your Allergies?

Spring, sunshine, warm temps, strong winds - it all adds up to tree-pollen season, and it seems to be a good one, though if you suffer from spring allergies, you already know that.  The primary culprits shedding pollen right now are oak, birch, and ash - the early-bird red maples have already gone to seed.

These red maple helicopters will soon be twirling their seeds down to earth.

It's the birch and oak that are shedding their pollen now.

There's a lot of pollen in those oak flowers.

There's not much we can do but wait for the rain to come along and wash all that pollen out of the air.

While we're talking about trees, I want to show a huge bittersweet vine (tree?) I saw over at the Meredith Community Forest while doing some conservation property monitoring work.

A massive bittersweet vine.

This is Oriental bittersweet, a woody vine that was introduced here from China as an ornamental plant, which it is - they are beautiful in the fall with their showy red and yellow berries.  But being non-native, they have no natural controls on their growth and expansion, so they will take over very large areas of field and forest.  Being a vine they are most often found as smaller plants spiraling up around a tree trunk, as this plant initially did.  But as bittersweet grows, the vine will strangle the supporting plant.  After it killed its initial host tree this one encountered another bittersweet vine and the two of them decided to team up and dance with each other (prior photo).

The vine's first host is lying dead on the ground.

I have never seen bittersweet this large before; it would be interesting to count its growth rings to age it.

Moving on to animal life, in addition to the loon mating drama of last week, we now have duck drama as well.  We've had a pair of mallards take up residence in Marion Cove this spring - they are always here, sometimes up on land eating acorns or other plants - and on occasion they've had to usher other ducks away from "their" cove.  But this week it appears another male came in and had a fancy for our female.  There were several moments of total chaos with wings flapping, water flying, and beaks quacking as three ducks engaged in some kind of battle of dominance.

All three kind of flew-swam-tumbled down along the shore out of sight.

Mrs. Mallard got into the action too.

Then a few minutes later two males came steaming back down along the shoreline in tight formation, one right on the aft quarter of the other, escorting it back to international waters.  I saw this take place once again but I have no idea how times they went by that I didn't see.  I'm guessing the challenger kept coming back to try and steal the other's bride and had to be repeatedly driven off.  Regardless of the results of paternity testing we're hoping we'll get to see little ducklings in a few more weeks!

Another bird observed on the lake this week was possibly the source of a lot of very traumatic loon calling.

An immature bald eagle.

This bald eagle flew low over the lake then rose up and landed high in a pine tree right at the water's edge where it would have an eagle-eye view of all the action.  

A bald eagle's head and tail won't become white until 3 to 5 years of age.

Even without chicks in tow I expect the loons don't like to see that watching over them.

Two weeks ago I mentioned that trillium were blooming in Canterbury, and earlier this week I saw my first in the Lakes Region; it's a compelling reason to get out on the wooded trails and find one of these beautiful flowers.

Painted Trillium (Trillium undulatum)

While you're out there look for the many other early wildflowers  blooming now including goldthreads, violets, and the just-now-emerging fringed polygala.  Hopefully you'll be able to find them through the blurry vision of teary, watery, pollen-triggered eyes.

November 4, 2018: Signs of change visible through the fog

There's only one word to describe this week:  wet.

Well, maybe fog, rain, mist, or drizzle would work too.

And gray would be pretty fitting as well, for that was the predominant "color" of the week.

But it sure was calm - until yesterday when the winds howled.  The one decent day was Wednesday and I was fortunate enough to have a trip planned with a couple of good friends for that day; we got in a mostly-dry walk up to Crockett's Ledge in the Hamlin Conservation Area.

Watching mist rise below Crockett's Ledge, with Leavitt Mountain in the distance

On the way we stopped in at the old cellar hole, the Stanton Cemetery, and took in the view of the White Mountains, where through the fog, we could see an early sign of winter:  Waterville ski area has started making snow on their trails.

A tiny arc of snow is just visible on Mount Tecumseh

Despite the rain I got outside enough during the week to appreciate the beauty of nature, even when the colors are yellow-nearing-brown with a patina of brushed pewter.

Beech leaves stand out against a damp November day in the Hamlin Conservation Area

The brightest colors I saw all week were bittersweet berries I found last Sunday when it was almost sunny.  I had always thought that bittersweet had both red and yellow berries, but looking carefully at these I realized that's not the case.  It appears that all the berries start out with a yellow sheath over them, which when it peels off, reveals the red berry that lies inside.

These provide beautiful contrast with the drab of November, which perhaps explains why they are so prevalent in New England, but it's still hard to look past the destructive power this invasive plant has on native trees as it grows around and up them, strangling them to death, and choking out competing plants down below.

Oriental bittersweet climbs high up a tree which will eventually be strangled by the vine

Signs of wildlife were few and far between this week.  I saw a few mallards on the lake and one pair of migrating ducks far out on the lake that I think were buffleheads.  The coming weeks are prime time to see migrating birds on our lakes as they migrate south from Canada.  I also found fresh deer signs around.

Fresh deer scat on the trail

Note that muzzle-loading season for deer started yesterday, and hunting for all firearms starts on November 14th, running through December 9th.  Wear your orange in the woods - you'll need it to been seen through the November soup.

Old Stanton Road on a misty day