December 29, 2024: Ice In and Tracks Galore

Where to begin....   

We'll start with Ice-In which was declared on December 27th.  It's possible it actually occurred one day earlier based on how little open water was left on Christmas, but if it did, it wasn't observed, so December 27 it is.  And although the surface is frozen, it is not safe.  Much of the center of the lake - the parts clearly open in last week's drone video - are very thin.  

Lots of open water on Monday Dec 23rd.

But that doesn't stop otters, as they are perfectly happy to climb in and out of the water as their mood desires.  The otter tracks all over the lake are really fun to see, and to imagine their behavior as they randomly run, hop, or slide their way across the lake.

They are completely unlike the fox which are all business - fox are on a mission, traveling in a clean, precise path across the snow, broken only when there is something to sniff at. 

Note the precise path of a canine crossing the otters' path.

Otters on the other hand, dance all over the place, running, sliding, backtracking to tackle one of their siblings.  

Otters having fun, while the pair of foxes just searched for food.

The messy tracks of fun-loving otters.

The jubilant play of the three brothers (totally made up on my part) went all the way from the west side of the lake, over Sheep Island, down to the outlet and across into the wetland between Wicwas and Winnisquam.  

Synchronized slides by the three brothers next to Sheep Island.

Over to Winnisquam.  I didn't think to see if they ran across the road, or swam over the dam.

These good-sized mammals weren't the only animals making their presence known this week, as two of our larger birds were seen as well.  First is this regal Barred-owl seen on Loon Point and captured by Eric Cohen.

Photo by Eric Cohen.

Second, I was able to catch the Pileated Woodpecker as it made its rounds of the lake when it stopped on a tree right in my line of sight.

The red mustache indicates this is a male Pileated.

With fresh snow, cold temperatures, and thick ice in the long-frozen coves (7 inches now), I had a couple of nice ski trips which is how I followed along behind the otters.  I also saw fox, coyote, and bobcat tracks, maybe mink, and several bird tracks which were most likely left by crows.

Much too small to be turkey tracks.

I'll end with a beautiful evening on Mt. Roberts at the Lakes Region Conservation Trust property at Castle in the Clouds.  (Speaking of that, did you see that Castle in the Clouds has been designated as a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior?)

I had planned to do a sunset hike on the winter solstice but the weather didn't cooperate.  Friday the atmospheric conditions looked promising so I took a late afternoon hike to the summit of Roberts.

Heading up over the ledges on Mt. Roberts in the late afternoon.

On the way down I stopped at the west facing ledge just before sunset as the fog was settling in the valleys between the mountains.

I was treated to a spectacular sunset with Kearsarge, Cardigan, and even Meredith's highest peak, Leavitt Mountain, in the distance.

Pink glow reflects off The Broads in Lake Winnipesaukee.

I tarried long enough to see the lights come on for night skiing at Gunstock.

It's an easy hike down from that viewpoint with a headlamp, especially with the trail packed smooth with dry snow.  Nonetheless, micro-spikes on boots are strongly recommended.

Happy New Year!

P.S.  After writing this I received a report that there is still a small patch of open water.  Depending on its size there may be an update in the ice-in date.  

November 27, 2022: A Gaggle of Goldeneye

There were a lot of feathered creatures out celebrating Thanksgiving this week:  woodpeckers, goldeneyes, mallards, geese - but none that I saw were turkeys.  Of these, the most interesting to watch was the pileated woodpecker.  It caught my eye as it flew, the flashes of white in its wings divulging its identity, and it was easy to follow it to its destination on an oak tree with a promising rotten spot on a large branch.  

This branch caught the pileated's trained eye.

It hopped up on the branch and listened for signs of life inside the decaying wood.

The red stripe on the cheek indicates this is a male.  Females have a black stripe.

He apparently found what he was looking for and pinpointed the exact spot to attack.

Right there, in that little gap surrounded by lichen.

He began his assault, chopping at the branch with long strokes of his powerful neck, up and down, up and down.  First he broke through the bark, making a small mark on the branch.

Woodpeckers use their strong tail as a third contact point to brace against as they drive their chisel into the wood.  This video, though blurry and out of focus, at least shows the force a pileated can apply to its work.  Note how he keeps his tail pressed against the tree, and stops to listen now and then:

As he worked, the hole enlarged and deepened.

Soon he broke through the outer wood and opened up a pathway to the insects' home inside, most likely a nest of carpenter ants, at which point he simply stuck his beak in the hole, pushing his sticky, barbed tongue into the nest - a pileated can extend its tongue out two inches - pulling out ant after ant, and maybe some eggs too.  

He sat for long time feasting on the high protein food inside.  

The whole process, from when he landed to when he got his first morsel took just five minutes.  Here's a video of him reaping the fruits of his labor.

The next bird encounter came on Thursday morning when we took a walk along the WOW Trail between Laconia and Lakeport to rev up our appetite for Thanksgiving dinner.  There in Opechee Bay was a huge gaggle of goldeneyes that had gathered for their own Thanksgiving celebration - over 30 of them.

Goldeneyes, thankful for making it unscathed through the first half of hunting season.

For some reason, there was one lone hooded merganser leading the flock.

Or perhaps being chased by the flock?

I've seen large gaggles of goldeneyes on Lake Waukewan as well, but only small groups on Wicwas - it must be too small a water body for large family gatherings.  These are pretty little ducks with their white cheeks and bright golden eyes.

There were also a few mallards in the bay.

Mrs. Mallard stretches her wings.

Lastly, I'll share some pictures of needle ice that I found on a run up to the White Mountain Ledge in the Hamlin Town Forest.  I keep my eye out for this on the first cold days of the year, but these were easy to find as they were right in the middle of the trail.  

Needle ice on the Red Trail leading to the White Mountain Ledge

Needle ice forms when the earth is wet and still warm, but the air gets cold so water on the surface of the ground freezes.  As water in the soil is cooled from above, it freezes onto the bottom of the ice crystal, and the needle grows skyward.

The intersection of water and cold always fascinates me. 

April 3, 2022: The Mighty Ant

Can a tiny insect take down a towering pine tree?  This week someone sent me an example of the remarkable capabilities of even the smallest animals, often hidden from us, but sometimes revealed by the forces of nature.  What caught the eye of the hiker in the Hamlin Conservation Area (thanks LH!) was the huge pile of wood chips at the base of a tree, and the expertly excavated holes in the remains of what used to be a majestic tree.

Photos by Linda Hammill

The first impression is that the pileated woodpeckers sure did a lot of work on that tree, and that's partially true, but the real work was performed over many years by a much smaller creature:

Black Carpenter Ant (Camponotus pennsylvanicus)

It's hard to believe such small animals can carve out these huge cavities, but when you look closely at the business end of black carpenter ant you start to understand.

When thousands of these insects work together, tiny bites add up.  It's important to note that carpenter ants do not eat wood, they only excavate wood to make nests and tunnels to travel between multiple nests and food sources, often leaving tell-tale signs of sawdust behind.  They prefer soft, moist wood which is easier to chew up, and explains why they are partial to houses with wet eaves and damp basements and garages.  

Carpenter ants rarely infest a healthy tree, but if damaged, with the protective bark removed and water penetrating and softening the wood, a tree becomes prime real estate for an ant colony.  Entering through a hidden location under the bark or under a front door step, they can carve out the vast interior of a tree or a 2 x 4 with no visible evidence from the outside.  But they do make noise as they chew and woodpeckers can hear them inside a tree, and sometimes feel their vibrations.  Once they find a vein of ants in a tree a woodpecker will return again and again to consume the ants, larvae, and eggs within.

So what do ants eat?  They are primarily carnivores, and their most important food source is other insects, especially dead ones.  They are great scavengers, cleaning up our forests, searching mostly at night for dead insects and other animal parts that they either consume where they find them or bring them back to the nest to feed to others in the colony.  Ants are pretty much at the bottom of the food chain, in turn feeding many others up the chain, including humans in some societies, even here in America in prior days.  It has been reported that Maine lumbermen considered them delicacies, but also ate them to prevent scurvy.  [Ref:  Nature-Study Part I, Charles Lincoln Edwards, 1924, Hesperian Press, Los Angeles,  pg/ 208]

Earlier in the winter I came across a good example of the inner workings of an ant colony when a tree weakened by its residents met its demise in a winter gale.

It's not evident how the ants found their way in but it's clear they excavated a large fraction of the interior of the tree, weakening it until it split right up the middle in the storm.  The inside shows how they carve out their channels like holes in Swiss cheese.

Those large round holes are where the pileated woodpecker cut access to the ants.
Note daylight visible through the top-most hole.

With warm weather on its way (hopefully) watch for these large ants - not the small "sugar" ants - near or in your house, and especially for the huge winged ants that are looking to create a new colony.

Much more fun to watch for as warm weather approaches are the loons, and they will be here as soon as each lake opens up enough for them to land.  The Loon Preservation Committee is working with a group called Journey North at the University of Wisconsin this year to help gain knowledge of loon migration, and they are looking for citizen scientists to help collect data.  The LPC is hosting a virtual presentation which you can join to learn how to participate in the study.  To learn more, visit the Loon Preservation Committee's YouTube channel (youtube.com/looncenter) at 7 PM on Wednesday, April 6th.

The loons may show up soon on Wicwas, though the weather was cooler this week so the lake made only slow progress towards ice out, and in fact, there was a snowmobile out on the lake on Wednesday, bravely (foolishly?) launching at the boat ramp and skimming across open areas of water.  The northern part of the lake is now open from the outlet quite a ways up towards the inlet at Dolloff Brook.  But the bird feeders have been retired for the year - has anyone seen any bears yet?  

We'll miss seeing our feathered friends up close.  

A white-breasted nuthatch takes its last seed.

But now I'm looking forward to seeing and hearing the multitude of song birds that will soon arrive in the Lakes Region for their summer season.

January 30, 2022: Woodpecker Week

The last week of January brought out the woodpeckers, though this red-bellied woodpecker has been frequenting our feeder all winter.

Red-bellied woodpecker, our most recent addition to the Lakes Region woodpecker family.

I saw my first red-bellied woodpecker in late 2020 and learned that it has only recently moved this far north from its traditional territory south of Massachusetts (See the December 20, 2020 journal entry for more about this woodpecker) and I'm hearing lots of reports of them being seen all around central New Hampshire now.  This bird is larger than our long-resident hairy woodpecker and second in size only to the pileated woodpecker - which also made an appearance this week.

A female pileated woodpecker, identifed by the black versus red mustache.

Pileated woodpeckers rarely visit feeders, even suet, unless it's in a large woodpecker-friendly holder; these imposing, active birds feed mostly on insects and are uniquely adapted to extracting them from deep within trees.  They have very strong necks and beaks which they use to excavate holes, but the really fascinating aspect is their tongue.  The pileated woodpecker's tongue is attached to the end of a long flexible bone that extends from the tip of its beak, continues along the bottom of its head, then wraps up and around the back and top of its head and terminates at its forehead in front of its eyes.  Picture a flexible bone shaped like a question mark (?) rotated 90 degrees clockwise.   Attached to this bone is a muscle that can push this movable bone far out of its beak to probe into cracks and ant tunnels deep inside a tree.  The tongue itself is barbed and sticky so its prey gets stuck to the tongue and pulled back into the birds mouth.  [Ref:  Sibley, 2020, What it's like to be a Bird, Knopf, pg 91.]  

I watched this bird start at the base of a dead branch on an oak tree, exploring every hole, rotten spot, and crack as it made its way to the end of the branch.

A truly remarkable bird.

I noted last week the dearth of soft snow for tracking, but on a trip up Mt. Roberts in the Ossipee Mountains I found plenty of animal tracks at higher elevations where there had been less rain and a bit of fresh snow to reveal the animals' travels.  First I saw a very conspicuous statement by a fox claiming its territory.

Fox use well exposed rocks and logs to leave their calling card for other foxes to see and smell.

Lots of mouse tracks at this marking stone.

I'd think the mice running between that rock and that tree might decide it's not a great neighborhood, but it explains why the fox wants to keep that corner for itself.

Next were lots of deer tracks and many more occurrences of deer hunting for acorns under the snow. 

A large area turned up by deer gleaning acorns.

Then I came across this strange mark in the snow which I can't figure out.

The tracks beside it look like coyote prints.

And it starts at a disturbed area in the snow.

One guess is a coyote dug something out of the snow and dragged it away.  But what?  A branch?  A long bone?  Another less interesting but more likely possibility considering this is right beside the trail is that a domestic dog picked up a stick hoping its owner would throw it!

Higher up on the ledges on the western flank of Mt. Roberts I had a good look at Lake Winnipesaukee, and yes it's all frozen over, even the broads.

Looking over Winnipesaukee toward the Belknap Range.

And looking north from the summit of Mt. Roberts, there was Mt. Washington, standing proud, displaying the countenance that gives the White Mountains their name.

A clear view of Mt. Washington and the Southern Presidentials.

For those who experienced the brunt of yesterday's Nor'easter I hope everything's ok.  We had just a glancing blow here at the Lakes with a few inches of snow, though it was hard to measure due to gusty winds blowing it around.