January 25, 2026: Dark-eyed Junco

One of our delinquent birds mentioned last week appeared after this week's snowfall:  the dark-eyed junco.

Juncos are one of our most common and wide-spread species, ranging from New Mexico to Alaska to northeastern Canada, and they are winter specialists, earning the nickname "snowbird".  They're present in New Hampshire year-round, though in the warmer months they stay hidden on the forest floor and at high elevations.  Juncos have some similarities to finches, particularly their beaks, but they're in the New World Sparrow family as they forage mostly on the ground, hopping around on two feet, to collect small seeds which they crack open with their beak using their tongue to maneuver the seed as needed.

They do good job cleaning up the deck, though they aren't very neat diners. 

Searching the snow for dropped millet.

Here's a short video of one cracking a small seed and dropping the shell:

In central New Hampshire, we see juncos mostly in winter after snow has covered much of their food supply, so they come to glean food under the bird feeders.  Here, nuthatches are their best friends.  The White-breasted Nuthatches in particular do much for the juncos as they shovel piles of small seeds from the feeder onto the ground while mining for the biggest nugget in the seed mix.

"This one will do."

We received a few inches of snow this past week which got me out on the skis for a short trip along the lake and up to the White Mountain Ledge.  Snow caught in a tree on the shoreline with a bright blue sky behind caught my eye and helped me notice one of the natural sources of food for juncos in deep winter:  Yellow Birch seeds.

Catkins on a Yellow Birch Tree.

These seeds aren't a staple of the juncos' diet because they don't pack a lot of nutrients, but they stay on the branches above the snow cover and they're better than nothing, becoming a factor in winter survival.  Hemlock cones, which also stay on their branches into winter, and which we saw the red squirrels dining on last week, are another source of winter food for juncos and other birds.

Heading into the woods for the ledges behind Lake Wicwas, I found a winter wonderland of snow-draped forest.

The January thaw is over.  Now we're heading into the deep freeze - yesterday's high at the Lake Wicwas Weather Station was 6.6 degrees F.  Along with much of the country, a polar vortex is sending New Hampshire a blast of cold air down from the north.  And it will usher in a good snowfall, beginning this afternoon.  We may get over a foot of light fluffy snow which is a whole lot better than the severe hit of wet heavy snow and freezing rain the storm may bring to areas south of New England.  With a long stretch of cold weather to follow, there may be some longer power outages in parts of the country, which makes a foot of dry snow look pretty good!

Looking north from the White Mountain Ledge.

Keep safe and warm this week, and don't forget about Pond Hockey on Meredith Bay next weekend.

February 23, 2025: Tracking Page Pond

The Meredith Conservation Commission sponsored a guided snowshoe tour of the Page Pond Town Forest yesterday that toured the entire Page Pond Loop trail in search of animal signs.  

Gathering at the Quarry Road Trailhead at the start of the trip.

Fresh snow and perfect weather greeted an intrepid group of 14 snowshoers - including people approaching 80 years old - that navigated the entire 3.2 mile trip with aplomb! 

Along the way we discovered signs of at least 14 different animals including deer, coyote, fox, porcupine, beaver, weasel (or maybe ermine), mink, red and gray squirrel, mouse, pileated woodpecker, white-breasted nuthatch, tufted titmouse, and chickadee.  A few we were hoping to see but didn't were otter, bobcat, and turkey - maybe we'll find them next time.  One of the more interesting tracks was that of a porcupine in the fresh, light snow.  In these conditions, rather than a deep channel plowed through the snow, we saw the wobbly track, footprints, and grooved furrow where its quilled tail dragged through the snow.

A porcupine waddled its way on top of the snow, dragging its prickly tail behind.

Another unmistakable sign was left by a pileated woodpecker that had very recently excavated a hole in a white pine as it probed deep into the trunk to feed on a nest of carpenter ants living inside the tree.

Large wood chips hacked out of a white pine tree by a pileated woodpecker.

Someone asked if that would kill the tree.  The woodpecker hole itself probably won't, but if ants continue to gnaw their way through the heartwood, and woodpeckers cut holes to get them, eventually the trunk will weaken enough that a strong wind will blow it over, the tree breaking at the weakest point at one the holes.

Several old holes and one new one - this woodpecker remembers where to find food in winter.

The group walked along the beaver dam that holds back the large pond which contains at least two beaver lodges.

A couple of beaver lodges out in the pond.

Earlier in the week Linda and I were on the same trail and saw the tracks and slides of mink near the dam at the beaver pond.

A long mink slide - narrower than the otter slides I've shared before.

This was the first time I've seen a mink slide.  It looks just like an otter slide but narrower - about three inches wide rather than the six inch slide an otter makes.  These were melted out by Saturday so we didn't see a slide, but we did see the tracks of what was probably a mink, as they were near water, but they may also have been those of an ermine.  Though much less common in the Lakes Region, ermine are a weasel of similar size to a mink.  Here are some mink tracks, identified confidently as they were part of the slide path, and ermine aren't known to be playful sliders like mink and otter.

Mink tracks.

Some obvious animal signs were the dozens of squirrel tracks all along our route, as well as myriad bits of pine cones, acorns, and hemlock branches that were being nibbled on by the red and gray squirrels.

Signs that a squirrel excavated, shelled, and ate a stash of acorns.

It was the perfect day to out in the woods in February - many thanks to everyone who enthusiastically participated and asked such great questions!  I hope you will join us again.

A perfect New Hampshire winter day.

Keep an eye out for future guided offerings by the Conservation Commission.

February 3, 2019: Polar Vortex Visits New Hampshire

It is certainly winter now in North America with the infamous Polar Vortex rotating down from the arctic to give us the coldest weather of the season.  NASA posted a neat video of the vortex as captured by weather satellites - it's worth watching the two-second clip.

Click here for video

New Hampshire didn't get the intense cold that our friends in Iowa and Michigan saw, but we had a few cold nights.  The coldest night here was Thursday into Friday morning, and there was a strange occurrence that night.  When I went to bed it was a balmy 2 degrees, and in the morning, around 6:30 it was just about zero.  But when I checked the minimum temperature recorded over night, the thermometer had recorded -11.2 degrees.  I didn't believe it.  The low usually occurs just before sunrise unless there's a weather change moving through, and that wasn't the case;  I doubted it could have warmed up ten degrees before the sun even came up.  So I went to check the data recorded at Laconia airport.  Sure enough, the overnight low there was 1 degree at 3:00 am, rising to 2 degrees at 7:00 am.  Still, my thermometer had never lied before, so I dug at little deeper.

Weather Underground (Wunderground.com) has many certified weather stations all over the country, so I thought I'd check out some closer to Lake Wicwas.  I found a station on Corliss Hill, one on Lake Winona, and one in New Hampton, just west of Lake Pemigewasset.  All three showed the same thing:  a significant drop in temperature after midnight, and then a massive increase of ten to twenty degrees in one hour!  The most extreme event was at Lake Winona which went from -18 degrees just before 7:00 am to +5 degrees at 8:00 am - an increase of 23 degrees in one hour!

I've never seen anything like that.  Perhaps geography was a factor.  Up on Corliss Hill, less than half a mile away but 200' higher in elevation, the increase occurred earlier in the morning, between 1:00 and 2:00 am.  But elevation alone doesn't explain why Laconia airport didn't see the event at all, as the airport is at the same elevation as Lake Wicwas.  Perhaps wind shading played a role.  Lake Winona, like Lake Wicwas, is located east of a steep ledge that rises several hundred feet above the lake.  At any rate, it's the most dramatic temperature change I've seen absent a strong front moving through.  Here's what the usual overnight change looks like, from Corliss Hill, Friday night into Saturday morning.

But it's been great to have a nice cold stretch after the last storm to keep the snow light and dry.  Linda decided (on the coldest day of the year) to take a trip up to the White Mountain Ledge.  Admittedly, it was a beautiful blue-sky day.

So we took the snowshoes and trekked through the fresh snow up to see the views.  We had to break the trail the whole way, some of which hadn't been broken out for at least two storms, other parts had only the most recent snow to break through.

We were shielded from the west wind by the hill, and the hard work (plus lots of layers) kept us warm.

She's not cold!

On the trip we saw a few tracks in the snow:  deer, ermine, even those from a snowshoe hare which I'm always excited to see since it doesn't happen very often.  (I couldn't get a decent photo as the tracks were in the shade of hemlock trees.)

You can barely make out the hare track in deep snow -
each track is an amazing six-foot leap from the prior track.

I did note a lack of fox and coyote tracks along the way, though we do have a fox that trots past our house every night, so they are around.  On the first day after the last storm we noted that there wasn't a single squirrel that made its way to the bird feeders, but on the second day they arrived.  There's no doubt about what is the center of attraction in our yard on a cold winter day.

March 4, 2018 - The animals are stirring

Meteorological spring arrived on March first and brought with it spring weather and other early signs of the coming season.  The chipmunks are out and running around on top of the snow looking for food and chasing one another to defend their territory.

On lookout duty

Gray squirrels are out all winter but their food supplies must be shrinking as they are spending more time under, around, and on the feeders.  Sometimes they'll hang upside down to eat.

Other times they'll take a seed up to the top in their teeth and put on a safety belt while they dine.

One morning after a slight dusting of snow there was a set of weasel tracks passing right through a major squirrel hang-out spot.

Where squirrel and weasel meet

Weasel tracks

I've had two reports of bear-sightings already, so the bird feeders are about to disappear for the season even though I haven't seen any bear signs around Lake Wicwas.  Earlier in the winter I saw this example of just how committed bears are to getting to something that smells like food.

This deer feeding is station made of strong, hard plastic, but Mr. Bear had no problem tearing a hole through it to sample the contents once he couldn't get in through the top.  

Nice teeth

Roads around the Lakes Region have already been posted which is a good indicator that the sap is flowing.  Sure enough, the row of sugar maples beside Lakeland School has been tapped.

The sap is flowing

Before the rain this weekend there was enough snow to allow snowshoeing and we enjoyed a beautiful trek with longtime friends up to the White Mountain Ledge in the Hamlin Conservation Area.

A beautiful day for a hike

One of the highlights of the trip was hearing two Barred Owls caterwauling with each other in the middle of the afternoon - probably a pair, as barred owls are just entering their mating season which runs through April. But it could have been two males, each trying to outdo the other with the quality of their haunting baritone voice.

Let's hope there are a few more opportunities for winter activities in the cards.  It would be nice to reschedule the snowshoe tour that was cancelled yesterday due to poor ice conditions; by Saturday there were gaping holes around the shoreline and large pools of water collecting on the surface of the ice.

Want even more encouraging signs of spring?  In the warmest locations there are even a few shoots of new green life pushing up through the soil.

Crocuses!

But don't unpack those swimsuits yet - there is still over 20 inches of ice out in the middle of the lake!

December 17, 2017 - Ice In

Winter is here, and signs of winter fun are starting to appear.

I don't think the animals in the region think it's a lot of fun, but they are also out leaving their marks in the snow.  This week I saw mouse, squirrel and deer tracks in the light, dry snow, but thankfully no bear tracks;  I expect they are all bedded down now, with the overnight lows falling to near zero.  The red squirrel tracks are easy to identify as they burrow out from under snow and make highways running from tree to tree.

A squirrel trail leads between two productive trees

Another animal highway was visible in the lake before the latest snow fell:

The beavers kept a lane open in the ice

The beavers had made a path by travelling back and forth between two lodges, including their food supply stashed at one of the lodges.

A food stash at a lodge

Because mice have so little mass their tracks are visible only when the snow is extremely soft and fluffy.

Mouse tracks in the light snow

Soon they won't venture on top of the snow much at all - they will tunnel down below it whenever they can to stay out of sight of the owls.

The bright snow brings out details that I wouldn't see otherwise, such as these woodpecker trees I hadn't noticed before.

Woodpeckers working on hardwood trees rather than their usual pine

And the still-flowing streams stand out in stark contrast to the fresh snow.

The red berries of the winterberry have been noticed all fall, and a few wintergreen berries are showing through the snow where they are protected near the trunk of a tree, both providing a bit of Christmas Red to go with the green of the pines, spruce, and hemlock needles.

Winterberry

Wintergreen

It looks like the cold weather will hold at least another week so we should be having a white Christmas this year - I hope to see you out enjoying the beauty of winter over the holidays!

Note:  Ice-in on Lake Wicwas occurred on December 12, an average date, and much earlier than last year.  The ice in one cove is currently 6-1/2" thick, 4" of black ice under 2-1/2" of white ice.  I wouldn't trust the ice yet though, as there was open water only a few days ago.  Keep an eye on the ice fishermen - they tend to cut holes as they go, so have a good idea of where and when it's safe.