April 22, 2012

Even without rain the water level started to rise this week as soon as a board was replaced in the dam, showing there is still water flowing into Lake Wicwas.  It should continue to come up with rain today and more forecast for tomorrow.  Before the rain started, we were treated to some beautiful June weather in April - the temperature reached 91 degrees this past Monday.  It was rather disorienting yesterday, looking out over the lake with sun shinning, leaves starting to come out on the trees - and Linda taking a quick swim after working in the yard - and thinking that last year, on the same day, there was still ice on the lake.  Last year on April 17 there was a foot of ice in some places, and I was standing on it drilling a hole!  This is what the lake looked like last year on April 22.

April 22, 2011

The world around the lake continues to come alive with the early trees pushing out the first leaves, and the first blooms appearing on the shadbush. 

Red Maple

Downy Serviceberry (Shadbush)

The small wildflowers are becoming more numerous, with violets joining the arbutus. 

Trailing Arbutus

Common Blue Violet

Squirrels are enjoying the fresh fruit on the larger hardwoods.  They scamper high up in the trees, leap boldly from one to another, and climb far out onto the skinny, springy, branches to munch on the swelling buds before they burst into leaf.

Of course, with spring come insects, and the black flies have also made their presence known. 
Ants are also out and crawling around, and although the birds are feasting on the new food source, they are not too proud to take a free hand out from the bird feeders too. 

Downy Woodpecker

One of the treats of warm weather is having the windows open which allows so much more of nature to enter one's life.  For the first time in quite a while we heard a barred owl hooting in the afternoon.  And last night, two of them woke us up calling to each other.  And the ever satisfying treat of hearing the loons call in the middle of the night has returned.  We also heard loud rustling in the dry leaves in the woods one afternoon.  Searching for the source revealed a turkey looking for food amongst the leaves - something we wouldn't have known in cooler weather with the world locked outside.

With the rain this week, I expect there will be even more spring activity in the coming days.

April 15, 2012

New Hampshire continues to have little rain, and Lake Wicwas is even lower than it was two weeks ago. There are rocks poking their heads above the surface where I haven’t seen them before, and underwater surprises are lurking for the unwary. I have only seen a few fishing boats out so far, but the beautiful weather this weekend brought out lots of kayaks and canoes.

I’m currently anchored close to home, recovering from some foot surgery, so I’m not able to get out and photograph what’s happening around the lake this spring.  I’ll be missing one of my favorite times of the year, seeing life return with animals and tiny wildflowers emerging.  I was able to find some blueberry buds swelling up, and red maples bursting out their early flowers.

Blueberry Buds

Red Maple

Fortunately my partner-in-crime captured a few sights for me. One recent event she found was the work of the pileated woodpeckers we saw earlier – a pine with several fresh holes tracking the path the ants had burrowed in the tree and made their nest.

She also found the first flowers blooming – the tiny, fragrant, trailing arbutus.

Trailing Arbutus (Mayflower)

There continues to be a steady parade of water fowl passing through the cove. Mergansers, wood ducks, mallards, even a pair of buffleheads glided past this week (not to mention the geese).

Buffleheads

Early one morning, with the sun just lighting up the hills, I saw a single otter swim across the cove, bounding up on land to take a short-cut across a peninsula back to the water on the other side.  It's rejuvenating to see beautiful summer mornings return.

At one point this afternoon, flying low overhead, were three hawks - finding the thermals driven up by the warm southwesterly breeze - when a fourth, even lower, came by with a tasty red squirrel dangling from its claws.   I’ll bet it didn’t share.

There is also a regular procession of beavers going by every evening just at sunset.  I did manage to drag myself over to the nearest beaver harvest, and found a lot more cutting has occurred in the past few weeks. The NH DES wouldn’t like what’s going on within the shoreline protection area!  At least the beavers don’t disturb the shrubs or soil.

To stave off the cabin fever, we took a drive up north and found there’s still some winter left in the notches. There’s snow on the Franconia and Presidential ranges, and one could still ski on the upper two-thirds of canon.

Presidential Range

Canon Mountain

Child's Park

Back closer to home, the work on the new playground at Child’s Park is nearly complete, just in time for summer. The equipment is in and they were grading the new ball field.

 A couple of early customers were already scoping it out.















And, as another indicator of the approaching summer, the sun has now moved far enough around in the sky to bring back summer sunsets!

April 2, 2012

Today we had the opportunity to witness another aspect of love-birds:   we observed a pair of male pileated woodpeckers performing some kind of territorial or mate-defending dance for over 15 minutes - that's from when we noticed them until they moved out of our sight, so the encounter could have gone on for much longer.

We first noticed the two birds clinging near to the ground on opposite sides of a twelve-inch diameter oak tree;  they appeared to be playing peek-a-boo.  They would lean their heads around one side of the tree and then back the other way. 

One would hop around the perimeter a bit, and the other would usually move in the same direction to remain generally on the opposite side of the tree.  Only on short occasion would both of them be within the same quadrant of the three, and almost never side by side. 

They would occasionally hop up the tree a few feet, but never more than about five feet high before they hopped back down again, both of them maintaining the same vertical height.  It was not clear which was the aggressor, and which was on the defensive.  During the whole process we got some great views of these beautiful birds - look at this view of their feet:

Through all this, there were only two  moments when there was any kind of obvious aggressive action - a bit of wing flapping at each other was all. 

After more than ten minutes of this peek-a-boo behavior, one calmly flew to another, slightly smaller oak tree about ten yards away to the west.  The other followed along just two or three seconds later.  They repeated the same dance for another three minutes before one flew off again - to a third oak tree, this one larger than the first and another ten yards away - and again, the second followed. 

The dance continued here for another five minutes.  At this point they moved yet farther to the west (each move was in a westerly direction) and we lost sight of them. 

Is it possible that the agressor was always keeping itself on the eastern side of the trees, forcing the other male westward, away from its territory, nest, or mate? 

For all we know his could have been going on all afternoon, with one bird being ushered far away from the others nest.  A little reading indicates that pileated woodpeckers mate in March to April, so this could be what we were observing.

Other observations of the day included a pair or mergansers ambling along the shores of the lake, and our first kayak of the year.  I didn't note yesterday that there were also fishermen out on lake Wicwas - the first day of fishing season!

April 1, 2012

A lot has changed around Lake Wicwas since my last real entry on March 11.  All the snow and ice is gone, and the cultivated bulbs are blooming! 

I couldn't find snow even in the last places it lingers, such as the bottom of the north facing ledges - nothing but porcupine scat. 

Porcupine Scat

There was a remnant of snow where it had piled up after sliding off the roof, but that doesn't count.

It always takes a while to get used to looking out and seeing blue water again after the drab gray of winter snow and ice, but it sure is nice to see the trees reflecting in the morning sunshine.  Warm days of swimming, boating, and fishing aren't far away now!

Lots of migratory birds have been visiting this week.  We've seen ring-necked ducks, wood ducks, mergansers, and of course, Canada geese. 

Canada Goose

They are all negotiating with each other over territory.  I watch one goose chase away a pair that was scouting the shore line for a nesting area.  I also saw two small wood ducks shoo away a flock of much larger ringed-neck ducks.  The wood ducks just flew at the group of ring-necks, and off they went.

Ringed-neck Duck

Now they're here

Now they're gone!

Later a few more wood ducks joined them, forming a small group of three mating pairs.

Wood Ducks

The water level in the lake is very low at the moment - a good seven inches below full, with water still flowing over the dam.  We'll be in good shape if we get heavy spring rains, but if we have a drought, it could be an interesting summer for the lake.  Boaters should beware of shallow rocks until the level comes back up.

Beaver sticks mark the usual full lake level

And an epilog to the deer and coyote story that started back on January 21:  we found the remains of the deer's backbone and pelvis left right in the middle of a trail that runs along the shore of the lake.  Either a fox or a coyote must have dragged it onto shore for final picking of the bones.

Something moved the remains from the lake onto land

But that was winter, and now it is spring - the time of renewal - and love is in the air.