August 30, 2026: Jack Pine

On a recent hike to Mt. Chocorua I passed through a rare natural habit, so rare in fact that it's recognized by the N.H. Natural Heritage Bureau as a critically imperiled (S1) natural community due to its small population and limited habitat.  It's the Jack Pine Rocky Ridge Natural Community, dominated by the Jack Pine tree (Pinus banksiana).  

Jack pines set root in soil held in small crevices in rock scraped bare by glaciers

In New Hampshire the jack pine is a remnant from the colder climate of the last ice age.  Because it can tolerate cold temperatures and harsh growing conditions, it was a dominant species as the glaciers melted.  As conditions improved over time, warmer climate species were able to take hold and crowd out the jack pine in most of New Hampshire and the Northeast. 

Short, sturdy needles retain moisture through dry, cold, windy winters.

Farther north in Canada's boreal forests where the climate is harsher and the growing season shorter, less hearty trees can't thrive, and jack pine continues to be a prevalent species.  But on the high elevation, wind-swept ledges of the Chocorua Range, jack pine is one of the few plants that can eke out a living in the thin acidic soils left after the ground was scraped bare by the glaciers. 

The barren landscape of Carter's Ledge on Mt, Chocorua.

Here, where less hardy trees can't compete, this rugged, boreal conifer is at the far southern edge of its present range.  The bent and twisted form of the jack pine on the Chocorua Range is testament to the harsh conditions and strong winds that can occur in the White Mountains even on mid-summer days.  

Jack pines typically have serotinous cones than remain unopened on trees for years until a forest fires with temperatures over 120 F releases their seeds. 

But jack pines in New Hampshire generally have semi- or non-serotinous cones that can release seeds on just a very hot summer day which keeps our small populations in place without fires.  However, according to Tom Wessels, the community on Chocorua has many more serotinous cones than the other New Hampshire communities.  [The Granite Landscape, Tom Wessels, 2001, Countryman Press, pg 99]  Wessels attributes this difference to the pines on Chocorua having migrated uphill from lower elevations that had frequent forest fires after the glaciers retreated.

An open jack pine cone with seeds dispersed.

Somehow, on these harsh, open ledges, jack pine continue to defy the elements, with each tree growing in the most precarious location, hanging on until eventually a strong enough wind brings its demise.

A Jack Pine clinging to the rim of Carter Ledge.

You can explore this rare community (there are only three known communities in the state) by following the Piper, Nickerson Ledge, and Carter Ledge Trails up to Carter Ledge.  You'll know it when you get there.  

Mt. Chocorua (left) and Middle Sister (right) seen from Carter Ledge.

More information on the jack pine and the jack pine natural community can be found in the book The Nature of New Hampshire by Sperduto and Kimball, or online in the Manual of Natural Communities of New Hampshire.

There's another interesting natural curiosity that anyone who's climbed Mt. Chocorua has probably noticed - this dramatic basalt dike that the Liberty trail crosses near the summit.

I'm not well versed in geology, so here's an edited version of what AI provided as a description of this particular formation.  AI referenced The Geology of the Percy Quadrangle by Chapman, and Geochemistry of mafic dikes in the Adirondack mountains by Coish and Sinton.

Hundreds of millions of years ago,  intense tectonic pressure deep underground cracked open the lighter-colored granite bedrock of the White Mountains.  Dark, molten basaltic magma was forced upward into these vertical fractures (this is called magmatic injection) and cooled relatively quickly to form narrow vertical sheets of rock known as dikes. 

As this ribbon of magma cooled between the granite walls, it shrunk and fractured at regular intervals, creating a pattern of horizontal fractures called columnar or sheet jointing.  These perpendicular breaks segmented the rock into blocky layers.  

After the glaciers stripped away the surface soil and exposed the peak, New Hampshire's weather and freeze-thaw cycles took over.  The dark basaltic rock is softer and more susceptible to chemical and physical weathering than the surrounding granite, so the dike eroded faster.  Rain and melting snow seeped into the dike's fractures, froze, expanded, and popped out blocks of the dark rock leaving the step-like features.

 Here's a close up view of the eroding dike.

The Liberty Trail crosses this fracture several times.  Just east of the summit on the Piper Trail is an area of basalt cracking where the rock is course grained and breaking away.

We spent this week north of the notches in Lancaster near the Pilot Range, which has its own interesting geology; I need to read more about that mountain range formation.  And right here at Lake Wicwas there's plenty of interesting geology to be found in the ledges and talus fields of Crockett's Ledge - maybe I'll dive into that someday.  Anyway, I didn't spend time on the lake this week, so yesterday I poked around a bit to see what's blooming here in late August.  I found the usual late summer flowers, and a couple of new ones including a foxglove and a meadow-rue.

Purple False Foxglove

A meadow-rue, perhaps King of the Meadow 

Self-heal

Yellow Wood Sorrell

Turtlehead, a fall favorite of mine.

I'll close with a sign of the waning summer:  Cat-o-nine tails starting to shed their seed cones.

There's an even more ominous sign hiding in the background, which becomes more evident with a change in focus.

Yes, leaves are starting to turn.

November 16, 2025: Buffleheads

A few more migrating birds found Lake Wicwas a pleasant place to rest during their long travel south for the winter, including this group of Buffleheads.

Bufflehead are really enjoyable to watch this time of year, bringing a flash of brightness and action to the November scene.  

Buffleheads relaxing on Lake Wicwas.

And they seem to be more tranquil than many other ducks; they spend many hours just swimming around slowly in formation, occasionally diving for food.  

Six males and two females.

I'll assume this is because they are tired!  Bufflehead migrate at night, leaving precisely at dusk, and sometimes traveling hundreds of miles in a single night. [ref:  Travis Audubon]  This allows them to take advantage of calmer winds and helps them avoid predators.  

But, as you probably noticed, they weren't a uniform flock - for some reason there was a Scaup mixed in with them, though it tended to drift away to fish closer to shore on occasion.

A Lesser Scout hangs out with the Buffleheads

If I've seen a Scaup before it would have been on the ocean, and I didn't know it.  I've not seen one on Wicwas.  I believe this is a Lesser Scaup based on a small corner on the back of its head; the Greater Scaup has a smooth, rounded head.

The squared-off back of the head is barely discernable in this picture.

You can read more about buffleheads in the above link to Travis Audubon.

More signs of the colder temperatures are evident around the lake.

Ice crystals on wintergreen, an evergreen which turns a burgundy color in cold weather.

Radiation cooling and damp ground provide an excellent canvas for Jack Frost to practice his art.

Low bush blueberry

Jack really pays attention to detail.

Beautifully rendered ice crystals.

Other signs of the season were found at the water's edge:

Cat-o-nine Tails

When the cat-o-nine tails start to shred you know winter's near.  We also had our first snowflakes in the air this week, as well as a little graupel that collected on the ground.

Graupel

I've mentioned this interesting form of precipitation before.  It forms when a snowflake floats around inside a cloud containing supercooled water droplets which adhere to the snowflake.  When the growing ice ball gets too heavy, it drops from the cloud to earth.  Here you can see some of the snowflakes as well as the graupel.

November is a transition time between seasons with less activity taking place as everyone prepares for winter, both human and wild.  It makes for a  peaceful time on the lake. 

And a nice reprieve from the busy summer and fall seasons before winter hits, a time for all to relax, reenergize, and enjoy some tranquility along with the buffleheads.

February 7, 2021: Common Redpolls visit the Lakes Region

Hello February, what a great winter month!  The days are already longer; the sun a little brighter, a little warmer.  New snow comes frequently to freshen the world and cold weather is consistent enough to allow a host of winter activities.  Lake Winnipesaukee is now iced-in so the Pond Hockey Classic on Meredith Bay was a go for this weekend, as is the fishing derby next weekend.

As the winter progresses and cold temperatures take over the northern hemisphere, the Lakes Region sometimes hosts transient birds visiting all the way from the artic in search of food - and maybe warmer weather.  It's the only time of year we are able to see the beautiful snowy owl, for example.  Another visitor from the north stopped by our bird feeder this week, a whole flock of them in fact.

Common Redpolls

Common redpolls spend the summer far up in Canada, breeding in pine, spruce and birch forests as far north as Greenland.  In winter they head south, sometimes all the way down to the southern Massachusetts border depending on the available food supply, often in large flocks, and this is when we might see them.  Redpolls prefer small seeds like thistle and millet that fit in their beak, both of which we have in at least one of our feeders.  

Those tiny seeds are perfect for crunching in their small beaks.

Traveling in large flocks, they can be aggressive toward other birds, even those in their own flock when feeding.

The flock commandeered the feeder.

I watched them fluff their feathers and thrust their open beaks at other birds to shoo them away; even the usual bully white-breasted nuthatch was put off.  But sometimes a nuthatch or a brave chick-a-dee would flit in quickly to steal a seed from an open perch.

A chick-a-dee braves the rebuff of the redpolls (note upper left) to steal a seed.

When I saw the first bird I didn't know what it was and had to look it up.  The black face is good identifying feature if you can get one to look at you.

Note the black face.

It's always a treat when you get to see a bird that doesn't regularly visit the area.  

A fellow birder just north of the Lakes Region shared a picture (thanks EKJ and RH!) of a pine grosbeak in they saw in Campton.  

Edie Kressy caught this pine grosbeak in Campton.

This is another northern bird; the Cornell Ornithology range map shows it just sneaking down into the northern half of New Hampshire, a part of its range listed as "scarce".  Like the red-bellied woodpecker that's moved north into our region, the pine grosbeak may soon move farther north and out of New Hampshire altogether to find the climate it needs, so that was a nice sighting.

I mentioned that the ice on Meredith Bay is sound enough for the winter activities this year. 

The Pond Hockey Tournament was on, but at reduced size and without spectators in the rink area.

But one should still be careful travelling on the ice as many areas on the larger lakes are still not safe for travel.  Even Lake Wicwas which has been iced-in for over a month still has dangerous spots, as we discovered this week poking around in some shallow areas near shore.  

Unsafe ice still exists in spots on Lake Wicwas

I'll finish out the week with a few pictures of February in the Lakes Region.

Nature never disappoints.