NH Outside: Spring Archives

Some of my best ideas have come to me as I relax in my hammock, recovering from prying up rocks, digging holes and spreading heavy mulch. This particular brainstorm came as I contemplated an enormous apple tree under full sail of pink and white blossoms.

Underneath the tree, hellebores prospered near the trunk, and the drip line was hemmed with lamium. Very nice. But it lacked something. It lacked strength. It lacked purple, that’s what it lacked. Very good. Problem identified, now a solution. What would fill the intermediate space, provide the color, and be low maintenance. “Yes, please, low maintenance.”

Well, crocuses, of course.

Like most really good ideas, fulfillment came at a cost. I diligently saved my pennies, trimmed here and there, and by the end of July placed my order for 1000 purple and purple-and-white-striped crocus. Every time I looked at that apple tree I had to smile. It was going to be great.

I waited, waited, and waited some more. My corms were due the second week of September. I gave them an extra two weeks, then called the vendor.

The bulbs had been sent on schedule. Was I sure I hadn’t received them? Okay, I’ll never win prizes for my powers of observation, but I’m pretty sure I’d have noticed a thousand crocus bulbs on my front steps.

Another week later the package was located in upper New York state. I received constant notification of its inchworm-like progress from New York to Michigan. (Michigan?) From there to Connecticut and thence to Massachusetts.

Good grief! When the poor cardboard carton arrived another five days later, it looked as if it had been the focal point of a buffalo stampede. Somehow the corms hadn’t been smashed, and there were still exactly 1000 of them.

I placed them, one by one, in the soft, prepared earth, viewed the arrangement from all sides, did some rearranging, and began to plant. The sun set and still I planted. My back protested vigorously. My knees sang counterpoint. Still I planted.

The more frost-proof mosquitoes sang in my ears. I really thought about quitting, but I just couldn’t leave my carefully arranged crocus. I planted until every last corm had been lovingly tucked into its appointed spot.

Then I discovered that I really, truly, couldn’t get up. Nothing was working. Communicating, yes. Loudly. But I couldn’t force my back and knees to get me off the ground. What to do?

Yelling for help was out. I’d collect frost first. I rolled and crawled to the spading fork and used it to lever myself up. I then lurched the interminable distance between my garden and the house­a superlative imitation of Quasimodo, if I do say so myself. The next morning, I was unable to get out of bed.

The reminder of that evening in the garden stayed with me through the winter. Ah, but so did my mental images of the apple tree billowing over its carpet of purple crocus and hellebores. Ibuprofen and my imagination were my soul’s support throughout that long and snowy winter. I imagined my crocus, safe under the snow, putting out roots. Then as the snow melted and the soil warmed I made a dozen trips a day looking for new shoots.

The apple buds swelled. The hellebores bloomed. The only activity where the crocus had been planted was the appearance of dozens of dark, round, little holes. Holes where vole families, vole clans and entire tribes had wintered on my crocus.

My friend in the Air National Guard thought I was perhaps overreacting when I asked if he could arrange a practice air strike on my apple tree. Hah! Norse mythology had a serpent gnawing at the root of the tree that supported the world. I have news. The mythologists had it wrong. It was a vole.

I tried everything. Voles blew bubbles with gum dropped into their holes and made nests of human hair gleaned from the hairdresser’s floor. Rototilling merely meant redecorating to the voles.

“Nice place you’ve got here.”

“Yes, the landlady just rearranged the roof and walls.”

I also rearranged things. I moved. I have never planted another crocus, I have no apple tree. I encourage the feared fisher cats to come and prowl my flower beds. My only tangible memory of that hammock-induced vision is the twinge I get in my back any time I pick up a shovel.

By Carol White, Master Gardener

March is for skiing. The days are longer and warmer, the snow sometimes mushy but usually adequate, and you’re finally in shape. Then April. T.S. Eliot knew whereof he wrote. Mud, cold, late snow, teasing warmth.

Finally the yellow arrives. First the goldfinches appear at the feeders in bright new coats-yellow, enhanced by black wings. Evening grosbeaks, bigger than the goldfinches, but similarly dressed.

Daffodils-the first green shoots appear in a sunny, protected spot, then among the trees where they have naturalized. A warm day and they burst forth, first the bright yellow ones, later the more subtle narcissus, with yellow centers. The forsythia explodes in yellow, sunlight on a bush, seeming all the brighter on a cloudy morning.

The daffodils and narcissus are my special favorites. I am a lazy gardener. Once planted in a convenient spot, they come back and spread, each clump expanding, year after year, where you had forgotten you put them. Mine are in an open grove of deciduous trees, so the flowers bloom before the trees leaf out and their leaves have time to feed next spring’s celebration.

Of course not everything in spring is yellow. A clump of bloodroot suddenly creates a white carpet, -short-lived and glorious, in open shade by the stone wall. These are the progeny of a few plants borrowed from a neighbor’s property where they had taken over the site of a long-gone farmstead improbably located on the northern slope of a hill. A few crocuses come and go, also more or less self-perpetuating. Red trillium appears here and there.

But yellow dominates. The daffodils persist. They survive a late snow unscathed and they don’t object when I pick a bunch to bring some spring inside, although the woodstove continues its service. A branch of forsythia, brought in before it blooms, obliges by allowing itself to be forced a bit before its time.

As the early yellow fades, spring begins in earnest. The fruit trees blossom white, then drop snowstorms of petals; lilacs' perfume surprises. Tulips may bloom in all kinds of exotic shades, but they don’t persist and naturalize the way the varieties of narcissus do. The wild and naturalized and the cultivated mix and match. In open, rocky places ground phlox, once it takes hold, provides a welcome splash of color.

My garden isn’t the well organized, well-tended example seen in fashionable brochures and catalogs. It’s very much hit or miss. There’s less work that way, although sometimes I seem to spend most of my energy controlling the excess of the successful plantings. After the forsythia finishes blossoming, it must be restrained with the pruning shears or it will overwhelm its neighbors. In an open sunny spot, even the daffodils become too aggressive. Come fall some will be dug up and moved.

When someone has given me a plant, it gets planted. Some do well, some don’t. The wild and the planted mix, and the planted sometimes go wild. A late-blooming rhododendron, brought from my childhood home in Massachusetts, brings forth pale pink blooms in July, long after normal rhododendrons have completed their show. By now it’s July. A clematis that climbs a trellis on my deck is a shower of purple. A little rose bush by the stone wall is covered in pink blossoms. (I’ve gone to war with the wild roses, one of the few plants other than poison ivy that I challenge aggressively.)

The yellow persists. I plant tall yellow marigolds in the garden, supposed to ward off some pests. Black-eyed Susans flourish on the edge of the pasture and anywhere else that isn’t extensively mowed. A plant with daisy-like flowers appeared by the gate. I don’t remember planting it, but it faithfully reappears in late summer each year.

The gladiolas, dug up in the fall and replanted in May, look promising for late summer enjoyment. For some reason the red and pink gladiolas are the first to bloom. The last are the yellows, which continue until every last one has been cut and brought inside to brighten the dining table.

Then there is autumn. Yellow leaves are a splash of sunlight underfoot or gleam from the trees in the afternoon sun. The beeches, especially, hang on to their yellowing leaves until forced to release them by a cold snap or strong wind.

Only when winter sets in, late November, does the yellow disappear, except for the gleam of sunlight, low in the sky, warming the spot where my lab basks. But the yellow waits, under the snow, for the chance to burst forth again, when I’ve put my skis away for another season.

By Carolyn Baldwin, Wildlife Coverts Cooperator

We had one of those warm spring days yesterday, so I went out to the garden looking for lily of the valley pips. These lilies were originally in my mother’s garden, and they’ve done some traveling in the 20 plus years I’ve had them.

Mom gave me lily stock to plant in my rock garden at my then new home in Pennsylvania. When we moved back to Manchester three years ago, I brought some of that stock with me to plant here. So they’ve come almost full circle, now growing just a few blocks from where they originally started.

They always flower around my mother’s birthday, which also happens to be close to Mother’s Day. The flowering is one of the times I think of my mother. She loved gardening and had an extensive garden-albeit a bit rambling-in our backyard. She was always puttering out there, and planted helter skelter whatever bargain she happened to buy or whatever someone gave her.

She never read a book about gardening’s fine points, just followed her instincts. She loved to take anyone who visited on a tour of her garden, whether they wanted to tour or not. She would talk about what was growing there, or complain about what failed to grow. And like the patch of lilies she gave me, she gave others what she tired of or thinned out.

Lilies of the valley grow from rhizomes-long, thin, horizontal growing, roots. The tuber has buds, called pips, which grow up as two wide bladed leaves and a stalk from which hang richly fragrant, bell shaped flowers. The ones my mother gave me were pink, a cultivated sort with the botanical name Convallaria rosea. I treasure them, not only because Mom gave them to me, but because they are less common than the white.

I’ve loved these flowers since I was a girl. I used to walk to and from school each day and along the way I passed a mansion. Near the mansion by the side of the road grew a large, wild area of these woodland natives mostly found in northern climates all over the world. At the first sign of spring, I would glance each time I passed to see if the pips were showing.

When the flowers finally bloomed, I would pick a sprig and swipe it under my nose to take in the smell all the way back home. It’s a favorite fragrance at many of the perfume houses too. The bottled smell can cost a little or plenty, depending on who is bottling it and where. A quick check on the Web shows an Italian perfumer selling it at $40 for a 1.7 ounce bottle, but give it a French name-Muguet du Bois-and a 1.5 ounce bottle of cologne costs $55. As a teen, I bought lily of the valley cologne at the five and dime store for $2 or $3.

On May first, Labor Day in France, it is tradition to offer these flowers as a good luck charm for friends and loved ones. Lily of the valley has been Finland’s national bloom for 42 years. It is also a favorite crest or coat of arms for many families and societies. Symbolically the flower means sweetness, a return to happiness and humility.

Lily of the valley goes by many other names including “May lily,” “ladder to heaven” and “May bells.” It is also called “our lady's tears,” because legend says when Mary’s tears fell to the ground at her son’s crucifixion, lilies of the valley grew up from the spot. A similar tears- turned- to- flowers legend refers to Eve after she was driven from the Garden of Eden.

Over the years, these small tubers can become an unruly patch. They may smell divine, produce great perfume and have national or religious meanings, but the entire plant is toxic. You’ll experience a health crisis if you eat this plant. It affects a person’s whole body, including the eyes, stomach, heart and nervous system.

This downside of the lilies also reminds me of my mother. While we got along for much of the time-I lived elsewhere for most of my life, and that was probably why!-we would have an occasional spat. With the cold passing of time and a few sunny phone calls, the storm would pass. We’d be talking again.

My mother died five years ago in August. I know these mother daughter quarrels sometimes happened, but I no longer remember the cause. What I most remember, especially in mid May, is the happiness I feel when I see my mother’s floral legacy blooming.

By Pauline Pinard Bogaert ,Master Gardener

Snow lingers in the woods, though a few bare spots have emerged under the firs, where the snow never amounted to much. The ice is mostly gone from the pond, and now, in mid April, we listen carefully for the wood frogs, lovely tan creatures with black masks who find the merest signs of spring reason enough to wake up and go for a swim.

One day I hear a couple of frogs and then a day or two later, I hear hundreds of them, their low key quacking easily mistaken for ducks. If any other frogs are about, it’s only a few spring peepers that pierce the wood frogs’ soft symphony.

The males are the first to reach the pond. Some command a foot or so of shoreline, hoping a female will hop down the hillside; others spread out across one of the coves, spacing themselves about a yard apart, hoping to intercept the females who must swim across from the opposite shore.

When a female arrives, males will try to climb on her back and then grasp her very tightly around her neck, gaining a position that will allow them to fertilize the eggs when they are eventually deposited, a process known as “amplexis.” Since two or more males will, if they can, glom onto a single female, it is essential the females be much larger than the males so they can pop up for a breath of air whenever they want to.

One year the frogs arrived on a Sunday, April 19. I found a spot near the shore where I could see five dozen frogs without even moving my head. While sitting there, I would hear rustling behind me and then watch crazed males take wild leaps into the pond. While any quick movement would cause all the males to submerge, an extremely loud sneeze had no effect!

Finally, a female appeared. Redder and larger than the males, she swam up under some grass clippings and stuck her nose up, the grass hanging over her forehead, making her seem like a teenager who’d dyed her hair to upset her parents. She eventually moved to within an inch of the shoreline. After a while, she set out for the nearest male, who was just hanging in the water four feet away. But she quickly veered off and swam within a couple of inches of the next male, then sped past. This guy quickly caught up, jumped on, and grabbed her around the neck.

Another female made passes at three males. Each time she approached and stopped, allowing the male to swim by for her inspection. The first two times, she apparently didn’t like what she saw and swam away. The third time, she swam past the male, paused, and allowed the male to mount. A would be suitor contested the pairing, but the first male held on tightly enough and the pair swam off.

The wood frogs continued most of that Sunday, taking a break for a couple of hours during the middle of the afternoon, then continuing until at least 9 pm. On Monday morning, there were only a few dozen frogs left in the pond, but there were more than 325 clumps of eggs in the reeds, each with two hundred or so eggs well over 50,000 eggs!

It was a lovely 65 degree day, the first real day of spring, when I next went out to check on the wood frog eggs. Numerous migrating birds had arrived overnight, including a small flock of evening grosbeaks, a phoebe, a flicker, a pair of wood ducks and three mergansers. Two ruby crowned kinglets, faster even than warblers, flitted about in the willows and the brush, while a song sparrow serenaded a pair of tree swallows that were checking out a bird house by the pond.

The wood frogs were gone, but their egg masses attracted a lot of notice. Nine newts squirmed in, around and through the jumble of egg clumps, sometimes twisting around each other and at other times plunging solo through the gooey masses. Several huge leeches attached to the clumps of eggs, and a painted turtle swam by, checking out the whole operation.

Within five or six days, about half of the tadpoles were out or active within their sacs; within a week, all had emerged; within another day or two, the egg cases themselves were mostly gone. I couldn’t tell who was eating them, it could have been ducks, newts, other frogs, the muskrat I noted hiding in the reeds or perhaps they just dissolve.

It may or may not be coincidence that ducks and a magnificent pair of great blue herons began to visit our little pond just after the wood frogs arrived. They were certainly enjoying their feeding, though I never could see what they were capturing.

From time to time over the next several weeks, I would see a vast swarm of tadpoles a yard wide, a foot deep, and more than 50 feet long, moving slowly along the edge of the pond, feeding on minute bits of vegetation and detritus and generally cleaning up the grasses and sedges at the edge of the pond. What a marvelous example of the incredible explosion of life in the pond!

Carl D. Martland, Coverts Cooperator

In Just-spring when the world is mud-luscious...

Surely the poet e.e. cummings was thinking about New Hampshire as he wrote the opening lines to his poem in Just. And isn't the word mudluscious just perfect to describe the month of April? Unless you are a newcomer here, you know that the Granite State has four seasons: summer, fall, winter, and mud.

With the deeper ground often still frozen, the spring rains and the melting snow turn the top layer of soil into a quagmire which makes traveling on our dirt roads a challenge. After a long cold winter though, it’s a challenge many welcome, for with it comes the first signs of returning life.

Cummings goes on to say that in spring, the world is puddle-wonderful. And so it is. Suddenly one day you hear a strange cracking sound and you know the frogs and toads are back. Ending their winter hibernation, the Eastern American toads have dug their way out of their burrows and traveled back to their vernal breeding pools, and now the males are croaking away for a mate with all the volume, enthusiasm, and ardor the mating season demands.

Joining them are the big bullfrogs that wintered underwater in the mud and leaves. From the hearty trill of the gray treefrog to the high-pitched, bell-like chorus of the spring peepers, the night sounds of spring give us reason to rejoice in mud. Without standing water, few if any of the toads or frogs would be able to mate, and our springs would be strangely and sadly quiet without their calls.

If you sit quietly for a while near a vernal pool or a ditch or the backwaters of a stream, you’re likely to find another amphibian now that spring has encouraged you to explore-the eastern or red-spotted newt. Although the young efts (terrestrial stage of a newt) will hibernate under logs or rocks all winter, the adult newts are often still active under the ice. Come spring, though, they are ready to mate. The adult females can lay 200-375 eggs, but only in unpolluted water. Since adults consume thousands of mosquito larvae and ticks, they, like the frogs and toads, are nice to have around.

For months, the landscape has been brown, the ground covered with snow. But now, the melting and slowly increasing warmth have brought about a transformation at the ends of certain branches. Here the pussy willow, with its happy wet feet, starts to show just a bit of gray. In a short time, the gray expands to the soft, familiar flower of the plant. The sight of the pussy willow in the wetlands bordering a road is another welcome reminder of the value of these watery areas.

And here in this soggy area, the green leaves of the marsh marigold appear. It won't be long before its yellow flowers will burst out. Does any flower proclaim spring with as much vigor and pizzazz? Much lovelier than the later dandelion, the marsh marigold makes a joyful statement about marsh life in the spring.

In cummings’s poem, the children eddieandbill and bettyandisbel come out to enjoy the spring. The whistle of the “old balloonman” beckon them to follow him. You can almost smell the fresh, stirring air as they play marbles and pirates and jump-rope and hop-scotch. Their names run together as they run around, exploding in the warmth of the new season.

The poem hints at a darker, deeper side of the mudluscious and puddle-wonderful season, hinting at the loss of innocence, as the “goat-footed balloonMan” (Pan) leads the children farther and farther away. We hear his whistle far and wee and understand that the children have gone with him. Are we, too, being led astray? Are we following paths that may destroy that which we so enjoy and need?

The plants and amphibians who live in our muddy pools bring us not only early signs of returning life after a long winter; they also act as barometers of the health of the wetlands, and ultimately, to the health of the planet. From newts’ breeding only in unpolluted waters, to the sad and alarming disappearance of many of our native toads and frogs, we can learn much about the effects of pollution and habitat loss.

How long can marsh marigolds and pussy willows live in water too sick for a newt to survive in? How sad would spring be if the frogs and toads, newts and marsh marigolds disappeared? Mud alone is not enough to make spring a beautiful time of the year.

Personally, I hope the sound of the frog choruses will drown out Pan as he whistles his way through our “mudlucious” spring. I bet you do too.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

Yesterday, the old wooden bench was still covered by snow from last week’s storm, its location found only by memory. Today, the entire top of the back is visible. Today also, the first stones of the vegetable garden’s raised bed have begun to peek out through the snow. I know that once the first stones are visible, they’ll absorb the sun’s warmth and the melting will accelerate. Soon, the entire south face will appear, as if by magic.

The metal roof of the three-season room resounds to the dripping of the melting snow off the back roof of the house. It sounds like rain and makes talking impossible. Each morning, the dogs wake a bit earlier, aroused by the sun leaking through the bedroom shades. In the evening, we leave the dining room windows uncovered while we eat. To watch the daylight as it lingers longer and longer is such a delight. We don’t need a calendar to know that spring is coming.

Last night, we left the wood stove empty. The day had been so warm we didn’t need to build a fire to heat the house. The room itself was empty as we all moved off to other rooms, no longer drawn by the heat and dancing flames. In the bitterest cold of winter, we seem to live in that one room. All the others feel cold by comparison. Last night, all were equally comfortable so we strayed to occupations in other areas.

The ski shop in town sends out emails starting with, “Spring skiing!” My friends and I find ourselves shedding coats as we glide along the groomed trails. Last week, we stopped for a while to watch a chipmunk on a tree. It seemed to revel in the warming sunshine and it too, noticing the different scent to the air. Spring.

The trees near the bird feeders are often now filled with flocks of finches. They sit there and chatter away. “Doesn’t that sun feel good? Shall we fly north tomorrow? I’m so glad she feeds us hulled sunflower seeds, aren’t you?”

Are they really saying all that? I don’t know, but it seems to me that their conversations must run along those lines. I know that soon I must bring the feeders in, well before the bears come out of their long hibernation.

On a snowshoe outing yesterday we saw rabbit tracks and deer tracks. The deer had come across the swamp and up into the woods behind the house. Suddenly the tracks changed dramatically from sedate, discrete hoof prints to widely spaced, deep marks, indicating that they had begun to leap through the snow, leaving long empty spaces between the tracks. I expect their white flag tails had flown up suddenly, alerting each other to danger. Had they spotted the bobcat, or had my wildly barking dogs frightened them?

The vernal ponds along both sides of the driveway are starting to melt. Down deep in the frozen mud, the frogs and salamanders are waiting to emerge and begin their mating rituals. The strengthening sun is warming down through the snow, melting the ice and unlocking the life hidden below.

The seed catalogs are all spread out on my desk, awaiting my belated, final decisions. Everything looks so good and tempting, but my garden space is limited; I must make hard decisions today and get the order out in tomorrow’s mail.

I wander to the back of the house to look out at the yard. Last fall, I stared to clear a new area and extend a stone wall around it. We talked about planting blueberries there, but there are several shrubs I’d like to buy as well. I know the birds will appreciate the blueberries as much as I will. Which of us will get the lion’s share? The partially finished wall called to me all late fall, but the frost had glued the stones to the ground so I couldn’t move them around as I wished. How soon will I be able to tackle that project? There’s no moving a wheelbarrow around in mud season!

As long as the snow holds out, I’ll snowshoe and cross-country ski. I’ll enjoy the winter for as long as possible. But I’ll also enjoy the warmer days and the strong sunlight. I’ll delight in wearing a lighter coat and thinner gloves. I’ll watch, as I go, for the first swelling of buds on trees and shrubs. I’ll note the behavior of the squirrels and birds and chipmunks. They know better than any meteorologist what’s happening and how spring is progressing.

Before long, the robin’s nest will once more be filled with chirping, gaping beaks. The nuthatches will come to the bag of dog hair I’ve hung out and pull out tufts for their nests. The frogs will fill the night air with throaty calls of love.

I’m not impatient for all that. I can wait. And I’ll enjoy the waiting and the watching for each sign of spring.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

I was quite young, perhaps 10, when I found the head.

 I had by that point seen a few gruesome horror films on the sly, but my imagination couldn’t grasp an explanation for the sight of the severed head of a goldfinch impaled on the barbed wire fence at the bottom of the field. It must have been spring; the goldfinch was in his bright courtship attire. I must have looked anxiously over my shoulder.

 A decade or so later I read about shrikes, and another decade or two passed before I saw one. This winter again I’ve heard a northern shrike singing in the field across the road. Its scientific name Lanius excubitor translates to “butcher watchman.” Carolus Linnaeus, the famed father of modern taxonomy, gave this bird its name of “watchman.”

 Linnaeus was praised for developing a logical, double-name system for describing the relationships among plants based on similarities in their reproductive structures. He was apparently more patient in observing the minutiae of flora than fauna because he concluded that the shrike was taking its sentinel stance at the tops of bushes, poles, and trees to forewarn little birds of the approach of a hawk.

 Shrikes may indeed be watching for hawks in their own self-interest, but they also have a culinary interest in the songbirds. This revelation has been utterly horrifying to some bird lovers. A close look at a shrike reveals an unusual head-size-to-body ratio and a distinct raptor hook to the bill. Sweet little birds sometimes overlook this anatomical feature. It is said that the shrike will even lurk in the underbrush beckoning curious birds with pleading murmurs.

 It was an unfamiliar voice that drew my attention to the shrike, a series of not-quite-melodic phrases that go nowhere and seem not to repeat. “If perseverance deserved success, the shrike would take high marks as a singer,” wrote Frank Chapman in the 1895 Handbook of Eastern North America. It is written that both sexes will sing and, come to think of it, I wonder why this bird would be singing at all, given that its breeding home—Alaska and central Canada—is so far north?

 This wolf in sheep’s clothing has the delicate feet of any perching bird. The element of surprise and a swift knock on the back of the head secures a meal for the shrike. The word “shrike” has the same Anglo Saxon root as “shriek,” though whether the shriek comes from the shrike, the victim, or the horrified bird-fancier is not clear.

 “One has to have something of the savage in him to enjoy thoroughly the study of the shrike,” wrote Edward Brayton Clark in 1901. “As a matter of fact, the close daily observance of the bird involves some little sacrifice for the person whose nature is tempered with mercy. The shrike is essentially cruel. It is a butcher pure and simple and a butcher that knows no merciful methods in plying its trade. More than this, the shrike is the most arrant hypocrite in the whole bird calendar. Its appearance as it sits apparently sunning itself, but in reality keeping sharp lookout for prey, is the perfect counterfeit of innocence.”

 The older nature books are full of such accusations directed at this hunter. However, the shrike gives chase solely for the purpose of culling the not-so-fleet to secure food. These writers choose to forget that a human hunter often kills for mere sport or trophy.

 It isn’t every year one can find a shrike in a New England pasture. “Like the bold Norse robber barons of old, these birds come down from their Northern wilds to prey on Southern wealth,” wrote Ora Willis Knight in 1908. Ornithologists report that it is mostly the immature shrikes with faint barring of the breast that wander south in the fall and depart in the spring. In times of cyclical rodent crash in Canada, even more birds will visit and these may travel even further south into the U.S. At this time of year, this northern shrike is sating him or herself mostly with rodents.

 In its summer breeding grounds, the shrike is also known as grasshopper hawk, cricket hawk, or mouse hawk, acknowledging the main staples of its diet. Shrikes can also take a few snakes and frogs. Like a storefront butcher, a male shrike may hang a flamboyant display of fresh kill in a thorn bush or shrub to impress a prospective mate with his powers of providence. Food may be similarly cached against lean times, and this is probably the circumstance I witnessed so many years ago.

 If you should be lucky enough to glimpse one of these gray visitors, wish him or her well on the passage north come spring. Certainly we have mice to spare here this winter.

Note: A version of this article was first published in the Bradford Bridge, a community newsletter

By Ann Eldridge, UNH Cooperative Extension Wildlife Coverts Cooperator

While I love gardening and swimming in the summer, watching the foliage change in the fall, and skiing and snowshoeing in the winter, there's nothing that makes me feel alive quite like the first warm days of spring. A scent calls to me, and I simply must get outside to enjoy the unique aromas of the season.

This corner of New Hampshire was buried under nearly 150 inches of snow this past winter, a record for us. Now, each day I count how many stones in the garden wall are newly visible, which trees are starting to bud out, and how much more brown earth is visible near the dirty piles of snow. Those piles are still high, but they are melting and spring is definitely here.

In one patch of earth, I notice a small flock of juncos feeding. Since they weren't here during the long winter months, I assume they've journeyed from somewhere south of us. They bustle about, finding a few stray seeds scattered by the blue jays, which roil the feeders by suddenly taking off. A robin hops along, searching for something tasty in the ground.

On my walk, I'm serenaded along the way by the red-winged blackbirds. First comes a little bell-like sound and then the wings open, flashing the distinctive red patch, and the head bends down and forward for the big "scree." Three males are dueling furiously. First one sings out and the moment he's finished, a second starts up, followed immediately by a third. Their perches are only a few feet apart. Will they really nest so closely or will one remain victorious while the others leave for new territories?

The common grackles have returned, too. Their brilliant yellow eyes stand out from their lustrous blue-black coats, shining iridescently in the sunlight. Clustering together on a tall tree, they have long and raucous discussions about what? Their recent flights north? The quality of the sunflower seeds at my feeders (duly brought in each night now that the bears are astir)? The depth of snow on the still-frozen swamp? Perhaps they, like me, are simply delighting in the warm spring air.

Nearby, great blue heron couples are choosing their nesting sites. Two of last year's nests are already taken. Refurbished a bit, they're now ready and a heron stands guard over each while the mates are off doing some fishing. Perhaps the first eggs have already been laid. A third nest is being looked over by a pair in mating plumage. They stand on the nest and peer down at it, appearing to ask: What do you think? Will this one do? I call that nest "faraway" because it's off by itself, a short distance from the remaining nests used last summer.

In another tree, two birds stand near a small pile of sticks. I watch while one flies off to a pine and pulls some foliage to spruce up their new home. When it returns, the mate calls out to him before taking the bough and carefully trying it here and then there until just the perfect spot is found. Slowly, the nest takes shape.

Although two more of last year's nests stand empty, the heron activity is far from over. A fifth pair has also chosen a new site for their nest. They've placed few shortish branches in a crotch where two limbs meet the trunk of a long-dead pine. The herons stand one above the other and peer out in different directions over the swamp. I love their looks: plumage flying off the back of the heads, bold orange bills contrasting with the blue-gray feathers.

Nearby I spot yet another pair. They stand side by side in a tree to the south of the others, looking off over the swamp. Last year's five mating couples produced fourteen young; I can hardly wait to see how many six pairs will produce this season.

Meanwhile, one small area of the swamp has freed itself of ice and snow. The opening starts at the beavers' spillway and runs out for perhaps 20 feet. I scan it for ducks, but see none. I know some have returned to the larger lakes and ponds in the surrounding areas. Perhaps soon the swamp will have enough open water to tempt a mallard pair or a beautiful hooded merganser and his mate to fly in for a rest. Or maybe a wood duck couple will discover the nesting box high in the tree on the west side of the swamp.

It's spring. They'll be here soon.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

UNH Cooperative Extension

As layers froze over and more fluffy snow arrived, it came to the point that we'd walk a few steps on the snow and then break through and sink to our keesters,occasionally tipping over in the snow. I remember as a child walking to catch a school bus in this fashion. As an adult, I didn't find it nearly so much fun.

Coming nose to nose, so to speak, with the snow forced me to notice I had company: little specks of dirt that actually moved in the clean, fresh snow. This led to further investigation. My online sources told me that instead of minor hallucinations, these tiny, active flecks are one of nature's small miracles: snow fleas. Hardly larger than a grain of pepper, these creatures can survive subzero temperatures, can jump 20 times as high as their body length, and have flourished on this earth since long before the dinosaurs appeared.

I've mentioned these interesting facts to several friends, acquaintances and family members. They had never heard of or seen snow fleas and looked at me strangely as I described the phenomenon I witnessed in the snow. This goes to show, you don't always know what you've got, even when it lives right under your nose.

Members of the insect order Collembola, with more than 6,000 species scattered around the globe, springtails may be the most abundant insects on the planet. The name snow fleas is misleading, as it bears no relationship to fleas.

The springtail gets its name from the spring-like hook (called a furcula) attached to the underside of its abdomen. When these hooks release, the jumping begins. Strangely, however, it may not go anywhere except up and back down in the same position.

Since springtails tend to congregate in large masses and get trapped in crevices and low areas in the snow such as footsteps, watching these tiny guys hopping about can be a bit startling. They will also float in a group on puddles as the snow melts during the day. A non-porous coating on their exoskeletons prevents them from getting soaked.

Springtails don't necessarily appear every day. As this winter progressed, the snowbanks grew to monstrous proportions outside our living room window. It became impossible to ignore them. I began to wonder about a collection of black "dust" that would appear one day and not the next in one corner beneath our eaves. Run-off from our black shingles seemed a possible source, but why one day and not the next? As I was researching springtails it dawned on me that this "dust" didn't come from disintegrating shingles: these black specks were springtails.

Springtails actually have a function in life other than bewildering hapless ladies who have fallen in the snow. They feed on decomposing leaves, fungi, algae, dead worms, insects and other organic debris in the ground. Some sources actually call them most important decomposer organisms in the formation of the earth's soils.

Scientists have also found an unusual anti-freeze protein in springtails' bodies. This protein has been studied to see if it could help increase the longevity of human organs for medical transplants.

Harmless to humans, pets, and structures, snow fleas won't invade your stored food supplies or gnaw holes in your woolens. In most cases, springtails found in or about your house will soon disappear on their own,without the use of pesticides.

Springtails climb from below the snow to the surface as the winter temperatures begin to warm up. I like to think of them as a sign of spring, because they seem to show up when the sun gets stronger. It always pleases me to discover something that can live on and under the snow, defying cold, icy weather.

Somehow I suspect that if life as we know it disappeared from the earth, the tough little springtail would survive. So step outside and see for yourself: Life is where you find it.

UNH Cooperative Extension,Helen Downing, Master Gardener

It's spring and New Hampshire's black bears will soon be waking from a long winter nap. Their autumn goal was to eat five times their summer intake, trying for a five-inch layer of fat. As the weather cooled down, so did their appetites, and they sought winter lodging.

Biologists have learned that appetite in bears is controlled by leptin, a hormone secreted by fat cells. As bears fatten, leptin travels through the bloodstream, signaling the brain to suppress the appetite. As the weather warms, their hunger returns slowly. Bears in good condition still have some fat remaining in spring, and they feel no hungrier on arising than when they hunkered down. This arrangement with the hormone leptin is essential. It could prove fatal for a bear to spend a lot of energy in late fall and early spring searching for scarce food.

Bears aren't true hibernators; their metabolic rate slows only moderately and their body temperature drops only a few degrees. In his book Winter World, Bernd Heinrich describes winter bears as "the ultimate, enviable couch potato." For five inactive months they suffer no thirst, require no bathroom facilities, and show no change in muscle fiber and only negligible loss of muscle mass. Despite lack of exercise, they lose no bone density.

After burning fat for fuel, bears' cholesterol levels are double their summer readings and double those of humans, yet even an old bear has supple arteries and no gallstones. They don't get bed sores, and the sows continue napping after giving birth to their non-hibernating offspring. How bears accomplish all these metabolic feats is poorly understood.

Most of us think of bears simply as large, potentially hazardous beasts randomly roaming the deeper woods and occasionally galloping across the roads. Largely due to our comparatively weak senses of smell and hearing, we rarely imagine that them as having vibrant and complex social lives. Ben Kilham, who has been raising orphaned bears in the woods since 1992, describes bears' social play, their varied repertoire of vocalizations, and their advanced methods of teaching by demonstration.

Bears, Kilham notes, are also capable of remorse, empathy, and deception, qualities which indicate a highly developed sense of self-awareness and awareness of the minds of others. Kilham has recorded what appears to be altruistic behavior, suggesting that bears occupy the same level of intelligence as the larger primates.

After reading Kilham's book Among the Bears, I came away with a vision of the forest as a dynamic place full of complex visual and olfactory animal messaging systems. Bears are repelled by and attracted to each other across the landscape. Although highly social, they rarely come into actual physical contact, because bears' large food requirements usually keep them widely spaced. When food sources are abundant, however, bears set up food allocation systems within their territories, allowing even non-related bears to benefit.

Which brings us to the seasonal drama of bears at bird feeders. At 160 calories per ounce, bird food is a powerful attraction. Although bears would prefer not to approach human artifacts, some do, and they appear to be able to map out routes for themselves and their friends. The bears that go to feeders are usually young males, hard-pressed between their mother's territory, from which they've been ousted, and the holdings of dominant male bears. They'll get by any way they can on the margins until they grow large enough to claim a place for themselves or emigrate.

People have a compulsion to lure wildlife nearer with food. Often we convince ourselves we're helping, or connecting with nature. It's certainly easier to see wildlife in your backyard than in the woods. People who intentionally feed wildlife have all the positive results of watching "their" deer, turkeys, and more, but claim none of the responsibility when things go awry.

The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department has been trying to educate people about the long-term ill-effects of winter feeding that Good Samaritans typically overlook. Some of the ill-effects they cite: increased predation, disease, and disruption of social and feeding patterns. Wild animals habituated to humans often break our rules by destroying gardens, breaking and entering for food, and rearranging backyards.

So, if you care about and want to support bears,remove bird feeders. In spring the birds don't need them. Frighten bears away if they appear in your yard. Many feeder-raiding bears end up being shot (not by Fish & Game officials, who generally try to relocate them, but by landowners).

And if you want to connect with bears, perhaps even see signs of bears and other wildlife, visit their native habitat. Spend more time in the woods.

Note: An earlier version of this essay appeared in the Bradford Bridge.

The ice formed late this year on Great and Little Bay. From my window overlooking the shores of the bay in Greenland, I watched as throughout February the ice spread out over the mudflats and the brackish water until only the deep channel of the Furber strait was visible.

All along the shelf of ice, gulls -- herring and black-back -- would perch and preen. A few brave ones would go into the water but soon join the others on the ice. Several times this winter a bald eagle passed over the gulls, causing much panic. Once in a while I caught sight of several small flocks of goldeneyes and black ducks out in the channel but their numbers were down from previous years. The ice-fishing bob houses lined the tidal rivers making small and colorful villages out on the ice.

All through February and into the first week or so of March the ice stayed firm and thick. Then suddenly one morning, great continents of ice were on the move. The ice closest to the channel went first and the channel widened as the tides carried in the water from the Piscataqua.

Soon ice from the Squamscott in Exeter and the Lamprey in Newmarket started appearing in the open water. Fast-moving chunks, some of them as big as rafts, floated down through the bay. Most fishermen moved their bob houses up on the shore, but one or two seemed to be caught in the melting ice and no one dared to go out to drag them off the slushy surface.

Then the ice along the mud flats, having been undermined by the tides, started to break off the shore. Some of it tipped up into large sheets on top of smaller pieces and ice sculptures formed all along the banks. Jagged shapes pushed onto one another with each high tide, poised with sharp points at every angle.

Within two days the points rounded out, the shapes softening as they melted down into each other. On the outer edge, geometric pieces of ice broke off and floated down with the tides, joining smaller chunks coming from the rivers. Still, like a lacy petticoat, fringes of ice lingered around the marsh, though in some places it was no longer dense and white, but clear like glass.

More and more open water became visible and I could see Canada geese in large flocks out in the middle. And then one morning in mid-March, I looked out the window and the ice was gone. Waves of water moved into the marsh and over the mudflats. The small tidal creeks started running again out to the bay. Redwing blackbirds could be seen and heard in last year's phragmites reeds. Although an invasive plant, this tallest of all the marsh plants retained its seedy plume that attracts the birds. The green stubble of salt marsh hay, cord and black grasses is now visible through the wrack line of last year's storms. On the edges of the little pools found throughout the marsh called salt pannes, instead of ice, I see mallards repairing a nest.

Spring seems to take so long to come. But on Great Bay, when the ice goes out, spring is here.

By Sheila Roberge, Volunteer Writer 4/11/07
Roberge works as the volunteer coordinator for the Great Bay Discovery Center, the conservation-education headquarters for the Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Greenland.

This time of the year I become impatient for that first bit of fresh green or bloom. Since I know I’ll have to wait another month or more for Mother Nature, I usually try to do something to push things along. Most years, in addition to forcing spring-flowering bulbs in my refrigerator, I help some branches come alive before their time. I like to try many different species.

My basic strategy involves hoodwinking the branches I’ve cut from nearby trees and shrubs into thinking spring has come, by providing the warmer temperatures and longer hours of light that trigger the flowering response in spring-flowering plants. Known as “forcing,” this process requires very little time and effort. At this time of year, almost any material can be forced to flower in three to four weeks. The closer to the actual outdoor blooming date, the shorter the time necessary for indoor forcing.

I’ve found a host of flowering shrubs and trees suitable for forcing. Horse chestnut, pussy willow, shadbush, redbud, Cornelian cherry, spicebush, flowering quince, forsythia, spring witch hazel, bridalwreath spirea and magnolia produce the most spectacular displays. Fruit trees such as apple, plum, cherry, pear, peach and apricot also make lovely bouquets. The branches of almost any shrub or tree, including oak, birch and maple, are interesting to watch as they develop leaves and flowers indoors.

I wait until outdoor temperatures rise into the mid-to high 40’s before collecting my branches. I choose branches full of plump buds and prune them on a slant, cutting lengths of up to three feet long. Formed last summer, these buds are ready to burst into bloom. Flower buds are often fatter, rounder and sometimes a different shape than leaf buds. Flower buds also tend to be more numerous on younger wood.

For easier arranging later on, I choose stems the thickness of my little finger, using sharp pruning shears for a clean, quick-healing cut. Although pruning branches in winter won’t harm the plant, I try to prune evenly to retain the plant’s balanced shape.

After a winter like this one, I may not get as many blossoms as I’d like. The balmy weather of December and early January will have stimulated the buds of some woody plants to break dormancy and lose some of their winter hardiness. The long and bitter cold snap that followed in February and March may have killed the flower buds on some species. Even if I don’t have flowers, I know I’ll at least get sprays of foliage for my efforts.

After I’ve collected the branches I want, I bring them indoors and immediately plunge the stems into a deep pail filled with water; sometimes I even put them in the bathtub with a few inches of tepid water. I leave them submerged for a few hours—even overnight—so the stems and bud scales can take up as much water as possible. This makes the process of bud unfolding much easier for the flower.

Next, I place the branches in a bucket of water, adding a flower preservative to help them last longer, and set the bucket branches in a relatively cool place (60-65 degrees F) to develop. Higher temperatures will cause the buds to develop rapidly, but size, color and quality may be sacrificed. To keep the water from smelling bad, I change it once a week. I occasionally mist the developing branches with water from a spray bottle.

Branches need light for forcing, but not direct sunlight. Heat from direct sun is too intense, and often drying. I try to keep in mind the springtime conditions that promote flowering. “Thinking spring” helps boost my spirits, too.


Witch hazel and forsythia can take as little as one week to bloom; flowering fruits such as apple and cherry can take up to four weeks, and lilacs can take five.
When the flower buds have developed enough to show color, I remove the branches, arrange them in vases and put them on display just as the flowers begin to open. Arranging the branches with other spring flowering plants, such as daffodils and tulips, or with green foliage, provides a stunning contrast. The flowers and leaves will last longer if you can move them to a cool location at night.

So, why not bring the first breath of spring into your home as you watch a few slender branches burst into leaf and flower while snow still covers the landscape. It will help replace those still-fresh memories of frozen water pipes, non-starting cars, and extra layers of clothing with the hope of certain spring.


By Margaret Hagen, UNH Cooperative Extension Educator, Hillsborough County

3/14/07