April 13, 2025: Spanish Moss and Soggy Snow

We spent the past week in South Carolina where it was nice to see something other than snow in the tree branches.  When we returned to the lake on Thursday night we found quite a change had taken place in the days we were gone.  Not only was all the snow gone, but the lake was almost completely open.  We were greeted the first night home with the call of a loon drifting over the lake.  The next morning was dull and gray - a perfect day if you're a duck - and we were immediately treated to a smorgasbord of ducks on the lake including mergansers, wood ducks, mallards, black ducks, and these ring-necked ducks which are always a treat to see.

Ring-necked Duck.

Later in the day a pair was having an afternoon siesta near the shoreline.  

Sleeping with one eye open at 1:00pm.

I was careful not to disturb them, but eventually they woke up and perked up a bit.

When they suddenly leapt out of the water, I thought I had startled them.

But in fact, their flock, which was hidden around a point of land, had taken flight, and they were just heading off to catch up with their friends.

Can you see the mallard on the rock near shore?

Another early migrant was an Eastern Phoebe.

Eastern Phoebe perched over the lake, hoping the insects are out soon.

And no surprise, with the ice out, the beavers are back on their evening cruises across the lake in search of food and timber for building supplies.

There were branches nibbled clean of their bark showing they had been on shore, and sure enough, come night fall, one arrived to feast.

That's one big beaver that seems to have stored up plenty of winter food, but nonetheless is looking for something fresh to eat.

Now, South Carolina.  Our hostess arranged for perfect weather in the mid 80's all week and not a drop of rain.  A fun part of visiting new areas is finding unfamiliar things to investigate, such as these blossom-type items scattered all over the ground in a Low Country forest.  I figured they were pollen-producing blossoms of a tree and it didn't take long to identify them as Sweetgum.  

The dried up, brown spikey-thing (a "gumball") tucked into the leaf litter on the left was a helpful clue.

Imagine how much pollen can be expelled from all those blossoms.  

Male flowers of the Sweetgum tree.

Not far away at food-serving facility beside a lagoon I saw a large bird we don't have in New England but is easy to identify.

A Black Vulture looks for easy pickings.

Black Vultures don't venture north of Massachusetts, but maybe soon they'll make their way up here like the Red-bellied woodpeckers and winter Bluebirds have.

On the Isle of Palms we saw the usual culprits such as Laughing Gulls, Egrets, and Boat-tailed Grackles, but also a new bird for me, Willets.

Willets foraging in the surf on Isle of Palms.

It took a bit for me to recognize them as they were wearing winter or immature plumage.  (Thanks RB for the confirmation!)

Along Shem Creek in Mount Pleasant, a pair of Barn Swallows was dashing around over the marsh collecting insects, but then perched on a railing just for our enjoyment.

Barn Swallows at Shem Creek.

There were also pelicans gliding low over the creek watching the fishing and shrimp boats for cast-off fish.

Over at Folley Island we saw Pelicans performing their freefall crash into the Atlantic Ocean.

Searching for targets.

On the attack.

Contact!

No trip to the Low Country would be complete without a visit to a stand of Live Oaks with their Spanish Moss.

This is "Oak Alley" at Boone Hall Plantation which also provides much history of the slave trade and life in South Carolina.  It's worth a visit, for the history lesson as well as the flowers.

Some of the gardens in front of the plantation Mansion.

And then, after a beautiful trip through the Shenandoah Valley where we drove along miles of Red Buds and flowering trees, watching summer return to late winter, we were back in New Hampshire.  And yesterday, mother nature made sure we knew that as we woke up to this on Saturday morning.

Back to snow in the trees - we should have stayed down south another week!  Thanks for a great visit!

November 10, 2024: Cotton Candy Ice

It's been twelve years since I last saw these interesting ice formations, so long that I didn't recognize what they were.

I thought it was some kind of fungus until I reached down and touched one and it just crumbled in my fingers.  I then realized they were rime ice, like what forms on trees and structures on the top of mountains.  It occurs when super-cooled water vapor in the atmosphere bumps against a surface that's also below freezing, causing the moisture to change phase directly from a gas to a solid.  On mountains, it's clouds that cause rime ice and they often grow sideways in the direction of the wind.  

Rime Ice on the summit of Mt. Moosilauke.

The formations I saw this week were on stalks of plants less than two inches high.  My theory is that moisture in the warm, wet soil evaporated into the air, cooled to below freezing, and when it came in contact with the stalk which was also below freezing, it made the two-phase-change jump to a solid.  

The air must have been very still so it gently rotated around the stalk and grew into those neat circular patterns.  

They are tiny, and only formed on certain stems.

There's probably a scientific term for it, but I'll call it Cotton Candy Rime.  I noticed the cotton candy while admiring Jack Frost's handiwork with more typical ice crystals, the type I see every year but still find to be exquisite examples of crystalline structure.

On to the wildlife side of nature this week, the wood duck migration has slowed considerably, and the first flocks of migrating diving ducks appeared.  

Ring-necked Ducks

Like the Wood Ducks, Ring-necked Ducks like early mornings and are hard to photograph, but there were a dozen of them one morning.

One of the last groups of Wood Ducks did demonstrate how they are able to disappear so well when I witnessed them sneaking out from under low-hanging hemlock branches where they must have tucked themselves in and were totally concealed.

Look closely, there are a couple still right up against shore in the dark.

I also saw a couple of male Hooded Mergansers courting a single female in Double-dammed Pond at Hamlin, but they were too far away to get a good picture.

There's one.

Beaver activity is notable all around the lake - up at the Hamlin Town Forest, along Chemung Road, even right on our property, including this beech tree which they cut down and are in the process of gnawing off the branches to take away to their lodge.

Beavers harvesting winter food, bare branches on the trees, gray skies above, and cotton candy down below.  It's November at the lake.

March 24, 2024: 115 Ring-necked Ducks

Advance notice, this is another long entry.  It was one of those weeks with so much going on - ducks, beavers, snow, timberdoodles - I don't know where to start.  I guess a couple of follow-ups should be first.  One or more Red Crossbills have been hanging around since my first sighting in early March, and one appears to have found itself a mate.  The two stay near each other but the female is less bold so I haven't gotten a picture, but I did get a good look at the male. 

A Red Crossbill in a Red Maple on Wednesday.  (Note the buds!)

Another follow-up goes all the way back to January 21st when I heard Pine Siskins and noted that NH Audubon predicted the pine siskin would be the finch of the year.  I can attest to the foresight of that prediction:  All winter long I heard these these loud and boisterous birds just about everywhere I went, and I'm still hearing them.  I was able to get a recording of both of their distinctive calls so when you're out and about you'll recognize it:

The highlight of my week was an evening visit to Page Pond to see if I could witness the strange mating practice of the American Woodcock, also known as the timberdoodle.  I've seen woodcock during the day on the wet trail just in from the field at Barnard Ridge Road, using its long pointed bill to probe around in wet soil in search of worms and other edibles.  But it's their nighttime courting behavior I was in search of this week, and I knew they might be in that area.

I arrived just after sunset and sat near the edge of the transitional forest between the field and the woods and waited.  It was almost dark when I heard the first nasal "peent" of the woodcock.  Soon I heard a couple more farther away in the field, and then a dark flying object sped right past me and landed in the field perhaps 30 yards away.  I knew it was a woodcock when it started to call:  peent... peent.... peent.  After a couple of minutes of this the bird took flight and I was able to watch it circle around in a large pattern over the field and the small trees gaining altitude higher and higher, emitting a musical burbling song from its wings, until I lost sight of it in the darkening night.  And that was a disappointment, because that's just when it was about to start its crazy decent back to earth.  Supposedly the male woodcock will drop in a twisting, almost deadfall decent, slowing his fall just before he hits the ground, right back where he started.  Apparently this wild behavior impresses the girls.  

I didn't see it land, but knew it had because soon it started again:  peent... peent... peent.  I saw him take flight one more time, but after that it was too dark to see.  But he continued this for another 15 or 20 minutes as indicated by the peenting and burbling that I heard.  I never saw him fly off, but when the music ended I knew he was done.  Did he get the girl?  

Another male was still at it somewhere off in the field, but I was cold and headed home.  I didn't get to witness the fall of the timberdoodle, but I got a pretty good taste of one of the more interesting mating rituals in the New Hampshire bird community.  Next time I'll try in the morning when the day is brightening rather than getting dimmer.  I don't have my own photo of the timberdoodle, but here's one from NH Audubon:

The American Woodcock.   Photo: David Nelson/Alamy

Another exciting event occurred on Friday - that cold, windy day before the storm arrived.  As the sun rose over the lake it revealed a huge flock of ducks all grouped up on the far side of Marion Cove, tucked in behind the lee of the land to get out of the brutal 20 mph wind.  The air temperature was 18 degrees.  It was too dark to see what kind of ducks they were but as the sun rose it became clear they were ring-necked ducks, and there was well over a hundred of them!  

This is only a portion of the flock.

On one count I got 115 and on another 117, but there were even more hidden behind a point of land that I couldn't count.  They must have flown in the day before and sought out the most protected part of the lake to spend the night, and they ended up staying all day.  

Linda observed there were two groups.  One consisted of apparent pairs, a hen and a drake staying close together and behaving calmly.  The other group was a jumble of males and females (more males than females though) that were much more active, especially the drakes.  Our hypothesis is that these birds had not yet paired up and the males were doing their best to convince a female to accept them as their mate.  As the day progressed, warmed, and calmed somewhat, the flock spread out and some came closer and gave us a better look at them. 

When a female or two took flight, many others in this sub-group would follow along after them. 

These ducks will soon continue on their way up to northern Maine and Canada to breed.

While the ring-necked ducks were here the much smaller group of Common Mergansers kept their distance - we saw them far away down the lake.  We also saw one pair of Hooded Mergansers in the cove before the ring-necked flock arrived.  

Male hooded merganser

And the female.

They are a pretty bird; these poor photographs don't due them justice, but the goal of the journal is to document what nature is present.  

We're having a lot of fun watching multiple beavers cruise by every night, sometimes giving us great shows with their tail slaps.   One sight that has not been seen however, is a loon.  None of our loon watchers has seen a single one, which is unusual as the loons usually arrive as soon as there are moderate-size areas of open water, often days before ice out.  Perhaps it's because ice out was so early this year.  We'll have to wait and see when they arrive.  Has anyone from other lakes seen their loons yet? 

My comment a couple of weeks ago that old man winter might not be done with us yet was on target and somehow those ring-necked ducks knew what was coming; we picked up almost two feet of snow yesterday which made for some of the best skiing of the year.

A good late winter snowstorm after a very long dry spell.

After having very few birds at the feeder recently, the Juncos - aka snowbirds - came out in force as soon as the snow started. 

Dark-eyed Juncos line up for their attempt at the feeder.

It may look like a blue-sky day, but this was before sunrise using artificial light.

These are not polite birds like the chickadees are; a dominant bird often jousts with the others to keep them away from the food.

Here they are in action:

I heard a pine siskin calling during a lull in the storm in the afternoon and looked out the window to see one perched on the feeder. I was impressed to see this little finch take on the flock of juncos for jurisdiction over the feeder. 

It confronted every junco that attempted to land including one persistent junco that wouldn't back down. 

Eventually the two of them came to a truce, each taking ownership of an opposite side of the feeder.

It was a busy week at the lake.  This morning, with almost two feet of new snow, the lake has filled up with frozen slush and the ring-necked ducks were nowhere to be seen.  I wonder if the timberdoodles' bills are long enough to probe down through a foot of snow to find their worms!

Sunday, March 23 - Winter's back.