NH Outside: Wildlife Archives

by Helen Downing, UNH Extension Master Gardener

Living on a busy rural highway can have its advantages: We don't have far to plow in winter and hardly ever suffer power outages. On the downside, I can't just run across the road to open the chicken coop in my bathrobe. That's because the road divides our property; our house is on the west side of the road, the barn, chicken coop, and gardens are on the east.

The road, I need to add, has only been around since 1810. At that time, if the state decided to expand its highways, residents on the road itself were required to help in its construction. The once-quiet, unpaved highway between the county seat and the nearest district court has evolved over time into a paved thoroughfare. It still connects the court with the county seat, but now serves a stream of tourists, businesses, and local traffic.

That same visibility from the highway also caused me some embarrassment with our scarecrows. One year while I was away, my husband put up two scarecrows. One looked kind of like him--plaid shirt, baseball cap--and the other, looked like me--straw hat with flowers, flannel shirt, garden pants and...chubby. (Gasp!)

It's amazing how looking at a scarecrow that resembles you and includes negative attributes can make you feel crabby. Needless to say, that scarecrow got a change of clothes and lost some its stuffing in a hurry. It's one thing to fight the battle of the bulge, another to scream our overstuffed condition to every trucker, bus, and RV that goes by.

Anyone passing by must have wondered if we'd finally lost all of our marbles the day we dragged our chicken coop across the highway. This was a brand new coop built by my husband, who is well known for overbuilding even the most trivial of wooden devices.

He had built in our dooryard (Yankee for front driveway and place to work on really big projects). He and our adult son, also genetically inclined to participate in projects of dubious and complicated strategies, dragged it on skids across the road to its resting place using our Ford tractor.

With four grandkids sitting beside the road staring in disbelief and cheering wildly, the coop made the trip smoothly and remains in place to this day, housing 20 chickens who just don't know how lucky they are.

Two generations of chickens and their byproducts have lived in that coop and keep the garden compost heap and perennial beds healthy and fertile.

A few years ago as part of a fall display, I placed a four-foot tall, smiling scarecrow dressed in red, yellow, and blue in my garden facing the road. My dentist's receptionist, who drives by daily, commented as I entered the office one day how much she enjoyed my "frog."

It took me a few days to realize that from her viewpoint, in a car traveling along the highway, a scarecrow could resemble a frog! Ever since, frogs have become another staple in my garden, only now they don't look like scarecrows.

A few autumns back, while I weeded in a bed of perennials, my husband mowed across the field from where I knelt. He could see a medium-sized bear approaching from the opposite direction, getting closer and closer to where I was stationed, head down and oblivious.

There was no way he could warn me, since I was too far away to hear him yell. Cars passed, the sun felt warm on my back, and all seemed well with the world. I remember having the distinct impression I could hear a dog panting, but rather than look up, I just continued to exist absent mindedly in the moment.

Later, my husband would tell me he watched as traffic distracted the bear, and it crossed the road heading for the woods behind our house. I doubt that the bear ever endangered me, but still my mind's-eye view of the near encounter made me realize that we all remain too oblivious to our surroundings, including most of the passing drivers.

Over the years, I have noticed that rarely do the tourists and shoppers look left or right as they pass our house and grounds, so my fears of being as the crazy old lady were unfounded. (Okay, my reluctance to become the topic of local gossip still inhibits any urges I might have to cross the road in my pj's and fetch some eggs for breakfast).

Like my obliviousness to the bear in my garden, most drivers are focused on their immediate business. Whether beauty or danger confronts us, we've often become so accustomed to our surroundings that we forget to pause, look, value, and anticipate the amazing choices we have each day.

Hmmm. Maybe I'll add a life-sized bear facsimile to our garden displays. Will anyone even notice?

Photo credit: battlecreekcvb. (Not Helen's scarecrow!) Some rights reserved.

by Carol White, UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardener

"Something's bruin in New Hampshire." I have the bumper sticker hanging in the guest bedroom under a series of pictures of our native black bears. I should have added the tagline, Meet the neighbors. We have a large family of black bears for neighbors. At least I consider a mom with four yearling cubs to be a large family.

The bears went to bed late last fall and apparently rose early this spring. Usually we have the feeders in before the bears are up and about, but this year we were guilty of providing sunflower snacks to the yearling bears. At least they were healthy snacks.

We were very slow to catch on to what was happening. My husband and I were standing on the deck at dusk, wondering what was upsetting Summer, our German Shepherd, when John commented, "Isn't there something missing?" Indeed, the wire suet feeder was gone. Not chewed, not empty, just gone. I blamed raccoons.

A couple of hours later Summer growled. John flipped on the outside lights to illuminate a young black bear sneaking along the base of the deck, obviously headed for the snack bar. The lights confused him and he scooted up the slight ridge immediately behind the house to hide behind a tree maybe 25 feet away from the deck.

John went out to clap his hands and shoo the bear away. The bear simply "oofed" back at him. Summer was going ballistic, dashing back and forth between me and the now-closed sliding door. She was bellowing, "He's out there with BEARS. With bears! What is wrong with you people? How can I protect him if I'm locked in here? Argggh!"

John re-entered and explained to Summer that the situation was under control, reducing her to grumbling under her breath. Then he fetched our box of M100 firecrackers. We two humans stepped out on the deck, matches and fireworks in hand.

John lit the first M100 and tossed it towards the slope, not too near the bear. Said bear was peering at us from behind a large hemlock, but only the midsection of Bruno was hidden. Not very effective, but neither was the M100. It made a "pop" that was quieter than a cork exiting a bottle of cheap champagne and did nothing to discourage the bear. A second M100 likewise piffled out.

At this point, the dog and the cat were craning their necks, looking out the glass door trying to discover what we were doing. The dog has a low opinion of our ability to protect ourselves. The cat has a low opinion of our abilities period. The bear was undecided.

John, in his capacity as Chief Engineer was annoyed and went inside to revamp the plan. As I stood in the now-quiet night, I realized that we didn't have a bear, but multiple bears. At least one other youngster was now up in a tree to my left and I was quite, quite sure that the crunching brush noises from the other side of the ridge were yet another bear.

Enter the Chief Engineer with Plan B, a portable high-wattage floodlight and a fresh box containing strings of firecrackers. We flipped on the light and tossed several strings of 'crackers toward the not-very-hidden bear and another string off to the left to share the excitement. Exit bears at a high rate of speed, snapping branches as they descended from trees and fled over the ridge. We heard brush crashing down the back of our ridge, through the swale and over the next ridge.

We and the bears have achieved a modus vivendi. I can have my hummingbird feeder, but I must bring it in at night. The one time I forgot, a bear politely unscrewed the bottle of nectar from its base, leaving the two pieces unharmed except for minor scratches. Not wanting to help a good bear go bad, I am now scrupulous about bringing in the feeder.

In the very early mornings when Summer tries to herd me away from the slope going down to the deepest, brushiest woods, I figure she knows her job, and I stay in my own yard. Let sleeping bears lie, I say.

Photo credit:Beth Sadler. Some rights reserved.

By Anne Krantz, UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardener

What a wonderful winter for cross-country skiing! And what a wonderful way to enjoy nature during its rest season, when plants are dormant and animals hibernating.

When it's not too cold, I enjoy dashing outside first thing in the morning to make my "wake-up" loops in the gently undulating back field where I have maintained a nice ski trail.

If it's clear, I can welcome the sun as it begins to peek between the trees. Instantly, its warmth hugs me. As I float over the clouds of snow, sometimes I see a diary of animal tracks left during the night.

The other morning I discovered a line of tracks in the snow that ended at a freshly dug hole that descended down to the frozen ground, a foot below. Obviously, a carnivorous animal had picked up the scent of an underground creature, and dug furiously to catch it. No blood, so I assume the intended victim escaped.

But the sight reminded me that there's no sleeping or hibernating for New Hampshire's two most common underground friends: moles and voles. Amazingly, they stay active all winter.
Moles (the M stands for Meat-eaters) survive by expanding their tunnel network to find grubs and worms. As their food sources dig deeper and deeper into the soil ahead of the descending frost line, so do the moles. Thus they stay below the frost line and avoid digging their own graves.

Voles satisfy their voracious winter appetites by chewing on Vegetable matter. Many gardeners have made the discouraging spring discovery that voles happily dined on favorite tulip and crocus bulbs during the winter. Voles scamper about in runs they make in the insulated space between the snow and soil. When the snow melts, these concave depressions in the grass are a telltale sign of a busy winter.

The don't feast only on underground roots and tubers, either. Voles also can do a lot of damage to newly planted fruit and ornamental trees, by stripping the bark from their lower trunks, buried in a deep blanket of snow.

Thornton Burgess, who wrote charming animal stories for children in the early 1900's, provides the perfect explanation of why a creature, specifically Mr. Miner, would want to live underground. He begins his 1915 Mother West Wind "Why" Stories -- Why Miner the Mole Lives Underground, this way:

Thornton Burgess, who wrote charming animal stories for children in the early 1900's, provides the perfect explanation of why a creature, specifically Mr. Miner, would want to live under ground. He begins Why Miner the Mole Lives Underground (1915) this way: "Striped chipmunk sat staring at a little ridge where the grass was raised up....He knew they were made by Miner the Mole." To learn why Mr. Mole lives this way, he and his friends ask wise old Frog who explains. To escape Mr. Fox and others, Mr. Mole cleverly digs a hole and hides. There it occurs to him that hiding in a smaller side tunnel would provide even better protection. He then discovers that the underground life suits him and he is "perfectly happy and satisfied there, and what is there in life better than to be happy and satisfied?"

These happy and satisfied creatures can drive human creatures crazy, as they are nearly impossible to trap or deter. None of the ridiculous potions and remedies for eliminating moles, from chewing gum (they don't have chewing teeth) to castor oil, work. As this Extension fact sheet bluntly states:

Desperate homeowners and gardeners have tried placing various irritating materials in the runways such as broken glass, razor blades, rose branches, bleach, moth balls, lye, and even human hair. Some have hooked up their car's exhaust system to mole tunnels; others have pumped hundreds of gallons of water into the tunnels. Frightening devices such as mole wheels (spinning daises), vibrating windmills, and whistling bottles have also been tried. Aside from relieving frustrations, home remedy approaches have little value in controlling moles.

Voles (sometimes called "meadow mice") are also tough to control, because their burrows shelter them from both the weather and from predators. But most daunting is their reproductive potential: five litters per year ranging in size from one to 11 young. Females are ready to reproduce in 40 days, with a gestation period of only 21 days. This condensed reproduction cycle makes for exponentially staggering birth rates, because they also reproduce year-round.

All vole species are subject to large population fluctuations; populations generally peak every two to five years, but these cycles aren't predictable. These population shifts may result in densities ranging from a few to several hundred voles per acre.

The serene pleasure of winter is that these annoying critters are truly out of sight and out of mind under winter's beautiful blanket of snow. For a few months we can rest form the never-ending gardener's dilemma; the love/hate relationship with Mother Nature. Some of us actually hate to see winter end!

We stared at each other in mutual surprise, unmoving, unblinking. I almost said, “Do you wanna dance?” in the way of two people trying to maneuver around each other in close quarters.

We were 20 feet apart, but it suddenly seemed like a very small space. Her stare unnerved me. I took a step back into the doorway I had just exited she took a corresponding step back the reluctant choreography of unwilling dance partners.

In her bold stare I saw many faces: menacing hunter, consumer of small pets and carrion, scavenger of trash bins, popular cartoon character, trickster god. Her head came up, the yellow eyes blinked, a sideways glance and she melted back into the woods. I resumed breathing.

I had seen coyotes up close before, many times in fact during the 20 years I lived in southern California. Most of that sprawling metropolis has been so recently carved out of the wilderness that many of its original inhabitants are still there: bobcats, mountain lions, wild boar, and coyotes still prowl their home territories, wondering what happened to their hunting grounds and denning sites. As in New Hampshire, the number of human/wildlife interactions is on the increase, sometimes with unfortunate results for both parties.

Even in midsummer when it has finished shedding, the Eastern coyote that calls New Hampshire home is larger and fuller coated than its western cousin. Those I saw in California were a faded tawny-gray, a body that appeared half-starved on top of too long legs nothing like my sleek visitor with her vibrant reddish fur and confident stance, muscley-lean with a calm but feral look.

Coyotes invariably evoke an emotional response fear, excitement, wonder, disdain. In my New England childhood, they were the stuff of Indian legends and stories of the Wild West. There may be no other animal the subject of as many legends, from Abenaki to Navajo, from Miwok to the Crow nation. Coyotes are portrayed as cunning and subversive, tricksters, sometimes thieves or clowns, sometimes Promethean, bringing the gift of fire to mankind.

They are opportunistic and adaptive, learning to live in Central Park as well as the north woods and in our own backyards. They don’t fear our presence in their territory as much as they exploit it. The state of New Hampshire has declared year round open season on coyotes, but biologists say that will probably have little effect on their numbers.

Early this summer, as I took a break from long hours of weeding, a flurry of movement in the field across the road caught my attention. A flock of turkeys was executing a series of frantic evasion maneuvers, running first this way then that, in perfect formation, a large coyote close on their heels (or claws as it were). They ran as a unit with that queer bird communication that enables a flock of doves to dip and swirl in faultless symmetry in the perfect blue sky over a summer wedding.  “Scatter, you fools,” I hissed. Not that I'm any particular fan of turkeys who frequently visit my blueberry bushes. “Scatter!”

Suddenly, as if a grenade had been launched in their midst, they did exactly that each bird becoming clumsily airborne in a different direction , leaving the coyote to spin a quick circle of indecision before trotting off to the pasture edge. They will live to gorge themselves on more blueberries, I thought.

On a cold February night, when the temperature is so frigid you can barely stand to open your back door, you will hear the howling of coyotes courting off in the woods. Or on a quiet summer evening, when the moon is just beginning to glow on the horizon and adult coyotes are teaching their young to hunt, the tranquility will be shattered by a chorus of yips and howls that seem to come from a hundred snarling mouths the primal sound of a pack on the hunt.

You briefly speculate on which tiny creature is about to meet its demise, and even if you have never spent a single night in the open, you wonder how it would feel at that moment to be sleeping by a dying campfire deep in the forest. You wonder if the coyotes are gathering in some moonlit hollow, just out of sight, dancing.

By Lynne Lawrence, Master Gardener

The 2009-2010 school year was coming to a rapid close. Teachers were reflecting on student performance and their own learning experiences with UBD, IB, COF, NECAPS, and NEWAS. There’s always a new buzzword in education, but on a particular day in late May at Webster Elementary, the word came to life.

Folks in northern New England were enduring unseasonably hot temperatures. The school children were already telling stories of swimming in back yard pools and nearby ponds. Recess duty on that day would involve the challenges of keeping the youngsters healthy and hydrated.

In hopes of catching an outdoor breeze and escape the oppressive heat in the building, one staff member had stepped outside, then hurried back inside to find the school nurse (me). The students would soon be running out to the playground, and she was concerned about a strange noise on the school property she thought might have a safety impact on recess.

The staff member and I cautiously made our way toward the sound, a loud buzzing just outside the door. Several yards from our vantage point, we could see a huge cloud of flying insects at least 20 feet up high and half way between a big tree and the playground. We agreed we needed to do something immediately.

I rushed back into the building to make a general announcement that the children would have to stay inside for recess. Within a few moments the bell would have sent the children out, running directly into the path of the unidentified flying insects.

Listening to the disappointed voices of children reverberating through the halls, I contacted the district maintenance supervisor to ask for help.

“How many insects?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “A lot.”

“More than 25 to 50? We need to assess before we can make a plan.”

“A lot more than 50. Thousands!” I said.

“We’ll be on it as soon as possible.”
After the maintenance crew arrived and proclaimed their suspicions that the cloud was actually a giant swarm of honeybees, my fears escalated. I worried about the dangers of multiple bee stings and the life-threatening circumstances that could prove deadly.

How does an emergency management team prepare for dozens of victims of anaphylactic shock? My imagination ran wild. But in reality, the children were safe inside the building.

To the onlookers’ surprise, the cloud dissipated and settled as a large brown mass within the tree branches. One brave teacher was able to photograph the site to validate the incident.

I soon received a call from the district facilities manager. “I’ve been thinking about this. I’m gonna go over to Larry Boucher’s house, see if Larry can positively identify and capture the insects,” he said.

Larry, a retired teacher and longtime beekeeper, has run a bee club at Merrimack Valley Middle School for 10 years. When he arrived, he estimated that about 25, 000 bees occupied the low tree branch­one of the biggest honeybee swarms he’d ever seen. It was shaped a little like a hot pepper about two feet long, about 45 inches in circumference at the top and 12 inches at the bottom. Larry said that with no nest or food stores to defend, the bees were clustered in a resting, non-aggressive mode.

We watched anxiously as Larry pulled his pick-up truck right up under the branch where the swarm had landed, then shook the branch so most of the bees fell into a “hive body” baited with honey. He put his bee suit on so he could confirm that the queen had gone into the box to take command of the hive and ensure the other bees would stay there.

When it was evident that most of the swarm was encased in the box, and Larry announced he was “pretty darn sure” the queen was in there, too, we all breathed a sigh of relief.

I was very grateful for the “bee whisperer” in our midst, grateful for everyone’s safety, grateful I didn’t have to deal with a health emergency, and grateful we didn’t have to hire an exterminator. The recent and ongoing die-off of honeybees that pollinate our flowers and food crops makes it all the more important that the swarm of beneficial insects was preserved.

Larry said the queen could have left her pheromones behind in the tree, so he cut and disposed of many branches to prevent more bees from congregating at the site. Caution tape secured an area of the playground for a few days, and the last of the homeless bees few away in search of a new home.

The children may have missed outside recess that day, but the bees surely got theirs during a visit we’re still buzzing about.

by Judy Elliott, UNH Cooperative Extension NH Outside volunteer

drawing by, Pamela Doherty, UNH Cooperative Extension

When a young moose, looking like an awkward horse, showed up in our front yard one May morning, we were delighted but didn't bother to look around for Mother Moose. We assumed she was probably about to give birth and needed to focus her energies on caring for the newborn, not for a yearling who already knew how to feed and fend for himself.

Despite his size, he was clearly a young fellow, slender, brown, and definitely goofy-looking. There’s no denying it ­moose were last in line when good looks were passed out. Still, seeing one in your front yard is exciting, and we were delighted.

It being May and the height of black-fly season, we thought Youngster might have been driven from the swampy woods by thousands of biting insects, and now wasn't quite sure where he was or where he should go.

Fortunately, my camera was nearby. I grabbed it and turned it on, while he stood for a long time, just 15 feet from the house, staring up our long driveway toward the road and the trees beyond it. Apparently assuming the way home wasn't there, he trotted around to the west side of the house.

The woods are quite close to the house, perhaps only 20 feet away. “Hmm,” he seemed to be thinking, “There’s no water here. Lots of trees all around, but I don't think I've ever seen this area before.” So, after a few more minutes of contemplation, he turned around and headed back to the front of the house.

Once again, the driveway captured his attention, and he stood there for five minutes, just staring and trying to figure out what to do. Clearly this was an easy path to follow, and he could see more trees beyond that funny black path on the ground. We were concerned that he'd trot out toward the road. We live on a bit of a curve, and few drivers follow the posted speed limit of 30 mph. What could we have done to dissuade him and turn him in a different direction?

Instead, he turned again to the west and retraced his steps to the side of the house. From where we were, looking down from the second floor window, he seemed so near. (Low, seven-foot ceilings in our house brought him even closer to us, peering out the second-story window.) How often does a moose stand below you?

Of course, I snapped away with my camera, trying to capture every expression on his face. He was indeed a puzzled lad. For yet another full five minutes he stood there, just gazing at the trees.

Finally, he turned away from the woods and returned to the front of the house. After several more minutes of gazing up that alluring driveway, he happened to turn his head towards the north. There, in the space between the house and garage, he spied the beaver impoundment through the trees.

Water! Up close, it doesn't look like a pond at all, filled as it is with tall, dead trunks, but seen through bushes and trees, it’s clearly a body of water.

Our lost young friend wasted no time heading for familiar territory. He shifted immediately into full gallop. Around the flower garden, past the porch and garage, through the leach field, and down the hill to the swamp he raced.

Now that he was back in her watery environment, we didn't fear immediate danger from trucks or cars on the road. We imagined him feeding happily on water plants and other tasty flora.

It turns out that we were wrong about our wild visitor. Through the efforts of an editor at Cooperative Extension, a Fish and Game biologist got to take a look at a photo of our “male yearling.” The biologist immediately pronounced, “Oh, I think it’s a female and I'd estimate her age at about two-and-a-half years. That schnoz is way too long for a yearling. And by this age, a male would have the beginnings of antlers and this moose doesn't.”

So, our lost male yearling was probably a teenaged female that stumbled into our yard while exploring the area. And the Fish and Game biologist also noted something else from my photo. Our moose showed signs of having suffered an attack of winter ticks. Her coat was ragged and thinned almost to skin in the shoulder area. Fortunately, the biologist said that our young moose should survive and continue to improve. I don’t know what our young female was thinking during her wander in our front yard, but she certainly gave us a delightful 20 minutes, some great photos, and a terrific story to tell our friends.

By: Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

Photo credit: Susan Poirier

Growing a vegetable garden is a delightful experience for the senses: the sight of green leaves, the yellows, oranges, and blacks of the fruit, the feel of warm soil or a sun warmed tomato just picked, the smell of soil and plants, and best of all, the taste of the vegetables.

At the height of the growing season, I quickly run out to the garden to pick fresh lettuce or tomatoes to add to the lunchtime sandwiches. Perhaps tonight’s pasta needs some pesto for a sauce, so I’m out to the herb garden to harvest some basil. Ah, and what could be better than corn on the cob, freshly picked and popped into a pot of boiling water?

Then comes winter, when the garden is covered with snow. But down in the freezer are bags of green beans and containers of homemade tomato sauce, seasoned with garlic, basil, parsley and tomatoes, all grown in my garden. Yes, growing a vegetable garden is a sensuous and worthwhile pursuit.

Sadly, gardening isn’t all harvesting, eating and enjoying. It’s also battling the parts of the natural world that enjoy the garden as much as I do.

As many people know, raccoons are very clever creatures that love corn. They come a couple of weeks before the ears are ripe and test a few. Based on this exam, they know when to return to find the corn at perfection.

The night before I plan to harvest the first ears, the coons come and eat their fill. They pull and trample the stalks and eat all the ripe ears. They taste a few immature kernels to gauge when they will be ready for the coons’ next visit. In the morning, I face worse than a mess. I must bear the disappointment of knowing I won’t be having fresh corn on the cob for dinner this evening.

A wise gardener told me to add a floppy fence. Here’s how I did it. First I erected a solid wire fence, set down into the soil so the thieves can’t crawl under. Then along the top I added a floppy chicken wire fence, two feet high. I wired it onto the other fencing so there were no openings for the raccoons to crawl through. It seems they don’t like floppy fences the lack of stability makes them uncomfortable, so they turn around and leave. Using this method has saved me many a crop of corn.

Another mammal pest is that cute little chipmunk. Who couldn’t love these adorable wee creatures? Try liking one when you see it sitting on a rock, chomping away on one of your tomatoes! Then go into the garden and see where he’s sampled several before finding one he likes and carrying it away. The fences just don’t work with this guy he tunnels under or squeezes through. He always gets his ‘mato.

Having the vegetable garden within the dogs’ yard has been a big help. The chippies never know when the dogs will come out to chase so they tend now to leave the tomatoes more or less alone.

Last summer I had a different problem one that remains an unsolved mystery. Something was stealing my carrots. One day, a carrot would be growing there, its shoulders barely visible above the ground. The next day I'd find an empty hole. This was a neat hole, making it clear that the carrot had been pulled straight up and out. Gone. What could have done this? I have no idea. Everything else nearby, including the corn, was untouched. Whatever it was, I’ve been hoping it doesn’t come back.

Of them all, the worst offender I’ve encountered is the woodchuck. Because it tunnels underground, I’ve never been able to erect a fence to keep it out. At our last house, the woodchuck visited the garden regularly and ate everything it liked, right down to the ground. Things would grow up again and back it would come. Once again, devastation.

I walked around the garden on hands and knees, but I never found the hole where it got in. I checked the fence, held down snugly against the ground with large, heavy stones no opening, no weak spot, no way it could have gotten in, but there it was the evidence. Sometimes I’d even see the thief, but I never found out how it got in or out.

One of the great joys of this garden has been the lack of woodchucks in this area. So you can imagine how I felt this noontime. We were just sitting down to lunch when someone asked, “What’s that?”

There, just outside the window, moseying toward the daylily bed, in all its brown furry glory, was a woodchuck.

“Oh, no!” I cried. “There goes the garden!”

By: Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

Like most New Hampshire folks, I’d been looking for a first sign of spring something significant and spectacular to symbolize the change of seasons. For the past few years I marked the long awaited arrival of spring with the happy sighting of early bluebirds, often in a late snow.

But no bluebirds yet. I did scare a few ducks in some open water on the frozen pond the other day, but they were gone before I could really enjoy them.

Unexpectedly, early one morning when I was out jogging, I literally stumbled on a ruffed grouse. This determined bird was pecking at dried leaves along the edge of the road perhaps for salt? I was within four feet of the busy creature, who was totally oblivious or unafraid of me.

What an elegant, beautiful bird with such complex and intricate plumage. So many different kinds of feathers no wonder ladies of 100 years ago wore feathered hats. The sophisticated coloring blended exactly with the dried leaves and debris of the forest floor that was emerging from the melting snow.

I inspected the beautiful feather designs: its breast was checkered with fluffy white and dark feathers alternating, creating an interesting geometric pattern. Above these soft looking feathers were some sharply outlined bars on its wings. Its back was polka dotted in shades of chestnut and tan.

Its foot long body was very round, and after looking at pictures of ruffed grouse, I now realize that was because its plumage was puffed up. The black disk around its neck was very noticeable, and arrayed on top of this disk were a row of lighter feathers that created a scalloped edge, like a ruffle. (For those of us who thought it was a “ruffled grouse,” we weren’t entirely wrong!)

A sharp crest, taller at the back, tops its brown head. At the other end is the blunt tail of beautiful feathers with a black band at the edge. The tail was half fanned so I could admire the lovely striped feathers. I stood in amazement as the grouse continued to peck, even as I took a few quiet steps.

The owner of the house behind the trees saw me from his upstairs window and opened it to inform me that Mr. Grouse showed up a few days ago near his backyard bird feeder and had been hanging around ever since. (Wildlife manuals say that male and female grouse are difficult to tell apart, but seeing that half fanned tail reminded me of the fanning displays ruffed grouse males make during courtship, so I pegged him as a Mr.)

Three days later, a drum roll spring event! As I began my morning outing, I was greeted with noisy quacking in the pond around the corner a pair of ducks, the quacker and a serene female. Continuing up the road to another pond, I heard more quacks.

But what was that black cat like creature crossing the road? Too huge for a cat, and the big fluffy long tail was definitely not like a cat’s, nor the pointed snout like a cat’s cute face. A fisher! It must have alarmed the ducks, but not enough to make them fly away. Now a new worry popped into my head fishers getting into the duck eggs. So much for the peacefulness of nature.

Looping back along the road through the swampy area, again, I almost stepped on my new friend, Mr. Grouse. Looking sleeker today, as his feathers weren’t puffed up, nor his tail fanned, he blended right into the leaf litter.

I studied the grouse in wonder. Does he know I’m watching? He pecked right up to me; just five feet, then feet away. He circled my legs. I observed the feathers again, noticing how they resemble in color and pattern the pine cones lying about. I'd missed the light colored stripe on each side of its back the other day.

I took a few stealthy steps and the bird seemed to be heading in the same direction along the road. Was he actually following me? I continued slowly and so did he, as if I had a string around his neck.

He pecked at everything, finding a fat green leaf under the litter that he plucked out with his beak and swallowed whole, along with the bits of acorns and pine nuts. We went along like this for a couple hundred yards, until I gave up and left him behind to wander into the nearby swamp.

Ruffed grouse are supposed to be loners, but this Mr. Grouse seemed especially lonely! According to the books, mating season is in April.  I hope this poor fellow can last that long. And I hope that fisher finds something better to do than eat duck eggs.

By Anne Krantz, Master Gardener and Community Tree Steward

Photo Courtesy of Laura Erickson and Audobon.org (Common Birds in Decline)

I revel in those moments spent sharing time and space with a wild creature. In the last 10 years, I’ve seen my first moose, wild otter, bear and bobcat, all within 20 feet of my house. Each sighting has been a thrill and I remember each one vividly. But the bobcat has excited my imagination the most because I know it to be a secretive creature, rarely seen by humans.

How long has the bobcat been moving through this area? How many times has it passed within sight of the house and not been seen by its human inhabitants? I’ve no way of knowing, but each time I find its footprints beyond the fence, I feel a chill of excitement.

When was it here? What prey was it hunting? Was it hunting by stealth or setting up an ambush as bobcats often do? If there are other tracks around, such as squirrel prints, then perhaps it was carefully stalking its prey. Mostly I wonder, where did it come from and when will it return?

The first time I saw the bobcat was at dusk one evening as I was preparing dinner. I looked out the window over the sink and saw a dark shape moving along behind the lilacs. I didn’t need the binoculars or a wildlife manual to know what I was seeing. The small head, surely misplaced on this larger animal, the short, bobbed tail, the gray mottled coat all declared Bobcat! I watched enthralled as it moved with grace along the line of lilacs, then behind the white picket fence and out of view beyond some tall, wide firs. What a sight!

A couple of years went by before I saw the bobcat again. This time, I was fixing lunch and noticed a dark shape down at the edge of the swamp. I grabbed the binoculars, but the creature had moved out of sight. As soon as lunch was finished, I snatched up a camera and yardstick, shrugged into a winter coat, and set out to try to photograph the footprints so I could match them up with an animal track book.

I quickly found the prints. The animal had walked along the fence then down towards the frozen swamp. I took several photographs of its prints, using the yardstick to measure the distance between prints as well as the size of them. There! Now I’d have something to go by when I got back to the house. I hoped it was the bobcat again.

I decided to follow the prints back as far as I could, and as I turned to do so, I caught a glimpse of something moving quickly on the far side of the swamp. Yes, it was the bobcat! All the time I was focusing on its prints, it was well aware of me and moving quickly away to safety. Which of us is the wiser animal?

Once the bobcat was out of sight, I did follow the trail back. I saw where it had climbed up onto and walked along a narrow, downed tree. Its path led along the edge of the lower beaver pond then curved up to the side of our garage. The tracks then disappeared in the driveway.

I’d had no idea the animal came so close to this building­and in daylight, too. I knew from reading wildlife books that bobcats are primarily nocturnal, yet I’d just seen one in the middle of the day.

While other large predators were nearly pushed out of New England forests, the bobcat remained. Its mottled coat and secretive habits actually have allowed it to expand its range since the time colonists began cutting down trees to build farms. Adaptable creatures, bobcats will eat anything from fawns, cottontails and snowshoe hares, to squirrels, voles, mice, fish, birds, and even insects.

One morning last October, in daylight once again, a family member called from downstairs. I quickly ran down, wondering if one of the dogs had gotten into mischief. “Out front!” came the whisper.

There moving gracefully across the front of the house was a bobcat. It looked neither left nor right, just moved purposefully across the driveway, the lawn, behind the large forsythia bush, along the edge of the arborvitae and then behind the tall grasses, before disappearing into the woods.

It certainly wasn’t running or showing any signs of fear. I was astonished that it would be so bold as to cross an open area in the middle of the day. I felt strongly that our home was a part of its territory and it really didn’t care that we lived there too. What a privilege to share this land with such a magnificent animal.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

Drawing: Maggie Decker, UNH Cooperative Extension

I found it! For years, I've been searching every woodpecker hole in every dead or live tree I could reach. All the books say that many birds use woodpecker holes for nesting sites, but I'd never found a nest in a hole.

I've seen many nests built in crotches of trees, including one I noticed only because a brilliant male scarlet tanager flew right in front of me and up into the nest to feed his young. I've seen nests in bird houses I've put out and robins' nests on the jut-out of the dining-room bay window under the shelter of the porch roof.

The phoebes also like the tops of our outside spotlights and frequently nest there. Once I found the nest of a northern Baltimore oriole out in the middle of the swamp. But a nest in a tree hollow carved out by woodpeckers? No, never. Until yesterday.

Each fresh coat of snow for snowshoeing and cross-country skiing means hours of clearing. By the time I've shoveled the paths to the woodpile and bird feeders, cleared the decks and porch, created paths for my little dogs, and pulled snow off the porch roof, I'm too tired to get out there and enjoy the snow.

Yesterday, however, I stole some time. I'd donned snowshoes to get behind the woodpile to clear snow off the back. So when I finished, I headed out into the woods. They were so lovely still, and peaceful, the snow clinging to many branches. I could walk everywhere since the fallen trees, small boulders, stone walls, and low shrubs were covered in snow.

I followed a path made by a deer, trekking over to a large, dead tree to check it out. This tree must have been a monster in life. It had at least four trunks, one which showed signs of someone attempting to cut it with a saw 10 feet above the ground. One of the trunks lay buried under the snow. The bark was gone, and I could see many tunnels made by grubs and holes made by woodpeckers. I searched carefully, but no sign of a nest.

Out onto the swamp I went. On my last visit, I'd noticed an odd hole, with dirty footprints all around it but none leading to or away from it. Some creature must have come up from under the snow, looked around, and headed back inside. The most recent snowfall, however, had left only a small opening under a dead tree.

Up above, the five heron nests, piled high with snow, stood out starkly from their tree supports. I hope that somewhere down south the heron pairs and their 14 young are feeding well and enjoying the warmth and sunshine. Next month, the first arrivals should be here, scouting out the territory and choosing the best nest site. I'm glad these nests are all still intact. A few additional branches to refurbish and they'll be all set for a new crop of squabbling youngsters.

A hairy woodpecker flew nearby and began working on a tree. Bits of bark and wood flew out and fell onto the snow below. The dead evergreens seemed almost alive again with green moss hanging from each branch. I love to look at the dead trunks. Stripped now of bark, they reveal the twists and turns each tree made as it reached for the sun, shifted slightly to one side to grow around another, repaired the damage from a broken limb. One tree in particular was covered with knobs formed when the tree grew out over a stub. Little insect holes filled the trunk as well as one or two larger ones made by the birds.

I moved to a new area and noticed a broad snag about eight feet tall. The lower portion was nearly hollow and above, at eye level, was a large hole clearly bored by a woodpecker. I peeked inside and there it was, a beautiful bird's nest.

Snow had filled the nest's cavity so I carefully removed it to see the construction of the nest itself. Dried mud and grasses formed a perfect circle. The inside was as smooth as a carefully turned and sanded wooden bowl. The nest was large, at least as large as the ones the robins build above our window. The birds had carefully selected an opening which faced east, avoiding both the heat of the summer sun and the winds from the north and west. Perfect.

I noted the location of that tree. In the spring and summer, I won't be able to see the opening from the shore, but I'll be able to watch for adult birds flying in and out of the nest. I'm curious to know what species built the nest. Now that I've found it, I'm going to enjoy it.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

Drawing: Pamela Doherty, UNH Cooperative Extension

Glancing out of my observation window in the living room, I saw a grey ball of feathers looking somewhat like a tufted titmouse, but this one had no tufts. The tiny bird had flattened his tufts, making himself as small as he could by hunkering down next to a branch on the lilac near my window. His eyes were as big as saucers; dark round pools of fear looking straight up at the sky.

Looking out the window I saw that Stumpy, the Eastern grey squirrel who lives in my backyard feasting on the remains of the feed from the birdfeeders, was also frozen in his tracks near the bird feeder, looking straight up. Hmmm, what’s up here? There was no one at the bird feeder; no sounds of goldfinches squabbling as they usually do or woodpeckers zipping in and out.

Living in a rural/suburban New Hampshire border town, I had never witnessed such behavior at my bird feeders. My birds fly in and out like most seed-loving birds, fight over the best spot, and in general have a good time. At night, I might have the occasional skunk or raccoon digging around my foundation for grubs or a deer or two munching on the hostas. That’s about all the wildlife I see, unless you count the turkeys and doves and the invasion of chipmunks that everyone has. But this behavior was different.

Gladly dropping what I was doing, I picked up my camera and headed for the screened porch, quietly watching the little titmouse wishing he were the size of a walking stick. I think if I’d tried to pry him lose he wouldn’t have let go.

Scanning the nearby trees, I saw it­a hawk, looking cool and confident of his next meal, perched on the branch at attention, slowing turning his head to take in the view. My camera in hand, set on continuous shutter speed, I found him in my screen and started shooting. Click, click, click. I must have gotten 30 exposures before he took off.

Looking around again for him, I saw him swoop, and Bam! Yellow, black, and white feathers drifted down from near the birdfeeder as he flew upward, the tiny body of an unlucky goldfinch hanging from his beak. Stumpy was still flat on the ground with one eye towards the sky and the titmouse was still holding fast to his branch.  The fear in the body of the titmouse told its story. The appearance of a hawk shadow causes these precious little birds to hide with fear and exhibit abnormal behaviors such as allowing me to photograph him so close, when he would have normally flown at the mere sound of the sliding door opening.

So who was the guy terrorizing my feeding station? From the field guide and my digital photos, a Cooper’s hawk, a small 14-inch by 20-inch, with a tail rounded at the tip. But what was he doing here in my suburban backyard? In the 10 years we've lived here, I’ve never seen a hawk, and according to the guide these hawks prefer deciduous forest near open fields for their hunting grounds, not backyards.

Reading further, I learned that some Cooper’s hawks have discovered the backyard bird feeder as a hawk supermarket.
But the fear Stumpy displayed puzzled me, as he looked to me to be too big for a small Cooper’s hawk to even think about having for dinner, especially since Cooper’s hawks aren’t normally found in suburban areas where a lot of squirrels dine at bird feeders.  Reading further, it appears small mammals are also on their menu as hawks with sharp beaks tear the flesh of their prey rather than gulping it whole like owls, making any live animal they can carry fair game.

After the attack and the settling of the feathers, the titmouse slowly turned his head to survey the trees, released his vise-grip on the tree branch, shivered as if he had dodged a bullet, and flew away to live another day. Stumpy, not as alarmed by the Cooper’s Hawk as the titmouse, straightened himself out, scratched his fur and starting looking for more leftover bird seed. Gradually the squabbling goldfinches came back, as did the woodpeckers and chickadees. Bird life was back to normal.

By Suzy Martin, Master Gardener

Two months ago, if you were sitting on the patio overlooking my gardens, you would have had to peer in and around the canopy of apple trees to see the old piece of hand-painted barn board hanging from the wisteria-laden arbor. Barely legible, it read “Beaver Brook” with a darling silhouette of its namesake.

Beaver Brook rises in Chester and flows south 30.7 miles, passing through several small ponds and lakes. The brook forms the boundary between Londonderry and Windham, then flows through my backyard in Pelham. Eventually the brook crosses into Massachusetts and flows into the Merrimack River in Lowell.

Our property (and the house my husband grew up in) sits up quite high from the brook, but every now and then you can hear the mallards down below. If you are quiet enough and can ease your way down the steep, sandy embankment, you may get to see the turtles sunning themselves on fallen birches.

In September we were preparing to go off for a long weekend. As we looked around the yard to make sure we had taken care of everything before we left, we remembered the apples. For the first time in seven years, we had apples on our Cortland tree (though the McIntosh was looking sickly as it always does this time of year).

The Cortland, however, had never looked so good and showed no sign of disease, nor did the apples hanging from her branches. We ran off for the ladder, so we could pick them before “something happened to them.” Happy with our harvest, my husband and I packed our things and our three dogs, and set out to enjoy the Maine coast for three days.

After returning we performed our standard ritual of walking the gardens, checking in on the koi pond and the greenhouse. As we rounded the fence enclosing the vegetable garden, we were stopped in our tracks.

Oh no! Someone had come into the yard, cut the fruit-laden lower branches off one of the dwarf trees, and hauled them off. Horrified, I thought, “Who would do such a thing?”

I looked around frantically to see if anything else had been damaged. As my husband stood there trying to rationalize why someone would do this, I let out a scream. “Over here! Over here!”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Our Cortland, although still standing, had its thick trunk whittled to a slender waist. Strewn about the lawn, chips of what used to be the tree’s trunk gave a clue. This was no human vandal, but a Castor canadensis and its large sharp teeth! Beavers (Castor canadensis) are the largest rodents in North America. They live in rivers, streams, ponds, lakes, or other wetland areas. They feed on a variety of vegetation, but the outer bark and cambium layers of fast-growing tree species such as alder, willow, aspen, and birch make up their principal diet. During the summer they eat herbaceous aquatic plants such as sedges and cattails.

They increase their tree-cutting during the fall to build up their food supply for the winter months, anchoring branches on the river bottom or bank near their lodges. Although there are many suggested ways to protect trees from beaver damage, not all have proven successful.

Looking for signs of entry, we walked the fence around our two acres, while my husband reminisced of his childhood here on the brook. He’d seen everything from great blue herons to great floods, but never a beaver.

Finally we headed towards the potting shed, which sits at the very edge of the steep embankment leading down to the brook. An old wrought iron bed rail, until now, had made do as a gate, to hold back an unwary visitor or a curious dog from the steep drop. But it didn’t keep the beavers out; the disturbed leaf litter leading down to the brook was the telltale sign they had been very busy hauling branches under the rail.

So today I was sitting on my patio. The Beaver Brook sign, still barely legible, but now clearly visible, swayed in the autumn breeze. The sunlight danced off the four-foot-high metal skirts that now adorn the remaining fruit trees. When I closed my eyes I could still see the shadow cast by the Cortland tree.

We decided not to cut down the Cortland completely, but to leave about four feet of trunk as witness to the story to be told. I will nurse the McIntosh back to good health, and I think one day I’ll give that old sign a new coat of paint. And maybe a stone Castor canadensis will find a home here.

By Cheryl Cravino, Master Gardener

Photo credit: Cheryl Cravino

When the daylilies had expanded to the point that some had to be moved into a new bed, we walked around the yard to find a good spot for another garden. The area we chose was awkward to mow, with sparse grass and sandy soil. I set to work removing the grass before amending the soil and transplanting the daylilies. It was the height of the summer a hot, sunny day with high humidity, and the work was hard.

I developed a sequence: dig up a clod, bang it against the side of a pail to remove whatever good loam was attached to the roots, and toss the remains into another pail for removal to the compost pile. Dig, bang, toss; dig, bang, toss.

Suddenly, as I was tossing another clump, I heard a call for help. Instantly I froze and listened intently. Silence. I looked around, but saw nothing. I knew I had heard a call for aid. The language wasn’t English and the voice wasn’t human, but there was no mistaking the intent of that call.

After a few moments, I returned to my labor: dig, bang, toss. Soon the pail of remains would be full and I’d take a break after carrying it to the compost pile. Without warning, it came again: a definite, plaintive plea for help. This time, I put down the tools and stood up, carefully surveying the entire area around me.

Then I saw them well down into the grass, nearly hidden. A garter snake, not large, but certainly ambitious, had slithered silently up behind a toad and grabbed one rear leg. Every few minutes, the snake would inch a jaw further up the leg and the toad would call out again. I cannot describe the sound; it was soft but clear. That amphibian was begging to be rescued.

What to do? I know I shouldn’t interfere with nature. The snake had to eat to survive, and a healthy snake can rid a garden of a lot of insects. But the toad was begging for help! How could I turn away?

Well, I did. I went up the porch stairs, opened the door and into the kitchen, down the hall to the study and grabbed my camera. Then I ran back out and took a picture! After all, how often do you see a scene like that one?

The photography accomplished, I looked around for a way to save the toad. Finally, I picked up the shovel and slid it under the snake’s head and lifted, hoping to frighten the snake so it would let go. Quickly the snake wiggled off and plopped to the ground, toad still firmly held. I tried again with the same results. That snake just slid off the smooth shovel, keeping its grip intact. I couldn’t think of any other way to free the frog without hurting the snake, so I tried again.

This time, the snake must have gotten fed up, or perhaps thought it wiser to get away. At any rate, it opened its jaw as it slipped off the shovel. In a moment it was gone, leaving behind not even a wave in the grass to show it had been there. Gently, I used the shovel to pick up the toad and, moving it in the opposite direction from that taken by the snake, I set it down on a large rock.

The toad sat there in the sun. I visually checked its leg for damage but saw no bleeding or obvious signs of problems. Deciding the creature needed some time alone, and I needed to put the camera away, I went inside. When I returned, it was still there on the stone but had moved slightly, so I went back to work. Dig, bang, toss. Another area completed and the compost pail was full. I carried it off to empty it. When I returned, the toad was gone.

My rescued toad didn’t ask for a kiss and didn’t offer me a wish. I already have my handsome prince, but it’s gratifying to know that one hot summer day, in the midst of clearing some land, I rescued a creature that lived to enjoy another day.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

Seeing a “new” bird or animal is an unexpected thrill. We have enjoyed two new bird sightings already this summer.

The first sighting happened recently in Franconia, when an unusual mewing sound caught our attention. The mewing turned out to be birds!

A woodpecker like bird was scampering up and down a white birch tree next to the high deck, just six feet away. Its coloring differed from that of hairy or downy woodpeckers. A quick check in our bird book confirmed we were observing a yellow bellied sapsucker, a member of the woodpecker family.

The sapsucker was industriously drilling rows of holes to get the sweet birch sap. Later we saw several more drilling away. These two had no red markings on their heads and speckled buff breasts the markings of juveniles. They had already learned to drill for food and were happily sucking out the birch sap.

Next we noticed bees flying about. They were obviously attracted to the sweet sap, too. And could it be? Yes, a humming bird! What a fabulous example of the interdependence of the flora and fauna of nature a little ecosystem right in front of our eyes, like a TV screen, but real. Watching this intertwined ecosystem reminded me of a favorite paperback book, Forest and Thicket, Trees, Shrubs and Wildflowers of Eastern North America, by John Eastman, with beautiful drawings by Amelia Hansen. Eastman not only describes a tree or plant, but gives its “lifestyle.” For white birch he notes that it “does not thrive where average July temperatures exceed 70 degrees Fahrenheit.” He also relates fascinating information about each plant’s “associates” and “lore.”

Eastman confirmed our amazing sighting in his chapter about white birch trees: “[A] pitted area of holes drilled in regular horizontal rows, usually fairly high on the tree, indicates the feeding site of the yellow bellied sapsucker. After drilling the holes, the sapsucker returns at intervals to lick up the exuded sap and any insects attracted to the flow. The ruby throated hummingbird is a secondary feeder. Though not the only tree ‘tapped’ by sapsuckers, white birch is a favorite.” I was curious to know more about sapsuckers. I discovered they breed north of the Nashua Manchester line here in New Hampshire. They like to nest in second growth woods.

White birch and aspen are tree species that sprout first in a cut forest, because they thrive in full sun. Sapsuckers like these pioneer tree species, but they need the older trees that are beginning to decline and have rotten centers. They excavate or dig out the punky centers for hidden and well protected nest sites. Obviously pecking holes in trees is the woodpecker’s unique adaptation. Woodpeckers may use the same tree for several years, but they excavate new nest cavities each year. They usually rear a clutch of five or six, incubating the eggs for 12 to 13 days and nesting for 24 and 26 days. In addition to sucking sap, they eat inner bark, insects, and fruits and berries. Our second “new” bird nested in the shrubbery next to our house in Amherst. Wood thrushes made a nest at the top of an overgrown lilac under our bedroom window.

We were alerted to the nesting activity by the lovely, flute like song of the thrushes. They started singing at sunrise, giving us a melodious alarm clock for a week or so. Then they moved on to other behavior that didn’t require singing perhaps incubation is quiet time.

Soon there were babies in the nest I could barely see by peeking through the dense cover of leaves. With the continuous rain this summer, the roof of leaves proved strategic. In early July we finally had a sunny Saturday. Not only were baby swallows fledging from their nest in the box in the garden, but we also heard lots of commotion near the thrush nest. A baby thrush was perched on a branch near the nest making a loud racket. Mother thrush paid no attention to the little ball of fluff, which eventually figured out how to flap its wings in the damp air. I didn’t pay enough attention either. Soon it was gone along with its mother, and the nest was empty.

I’ve just learned that bird nests next to houses are a bad idea because of bird mites. The life cycle of the mites coincides with the nesting schedule, and the mite population can explode just as the birds leave. With the birds gone, the mites can invade a home and bite humans to test them as potential hosts.

So I will cut back my lilac tree to shrub size to eliminate the perfect nesting site. The thrushes will find another location nearby, although maybe not so perfect for bird watching.

By Anne Krantz, Master Gardener and Tree Steward

People who run over turtles were to me nothing but cold-blooded killers. I took their inattention for indifference to the world around them. Until I became one of them.

My hubris was brought up short the day I ran over one. I was driving a busy state route, when I was distracted by three children on bikes riding on the shoulder. I swung out to give them a wide berth, only at the last minute seeing the small black shape between the double yellow lines. The sickening pop under my tire sent a jolt through me. Returning, I saw the crushed body and the woodland stream flowing under the road where the turtle had emerged. From then on, I held my anger at the operators of turtle-killing cars, chastened in the knowledge that I had joined the criminal element.

Turtles, more than any other New Hampshire animal, are most affected by our roads, our cars, our pets, and our subdivisions. Low, slow and driven by ancient impulses and long-imprinted navigation cues, they follow the same routes year after year, regardless of the changes in the land around them.

So precipitous has been certain turtle species’ demise that the state of New Hampshire recently upgraded the Blanding’s turtle status to “Endangered” and the spotted turtle to “Threatened.”

For many years, I had a front row seat to the diminishment of these two turtle species.

Our house and small lot was bounded on two sides by a large marsh and a country road on the front. At the end of our property a small pond, a dip in the road, and an active vernal pool on the opposite side, made for a turtle super highway as turtles began to wander to feed or lay eggs in May and June.

Painted and giant snapping turtles were the primary travelers, but the delicate and beautiful spotted turtles and the rare Blanding’s were also there in notable numbers. I was raised an outdoor kid on the rivers, ponds and lakes of New Hampshire, but I had never seen a spotted turtle until we moved there. Smaller and slightly flatter than painted turtles, these black and yellow turtles are celebrated in New Hampshire naturalist David Carroll’s Year of the Turtle. The contrast of their yellow spots and orange skin patches on their ebony shells make them the most beautiful of all turtles.

The shy spotted turtles spend most of their time hidden among the grass humps and the sloughs of marshes, except in the spring when they come out of hibernation and make for the vernal pools to recharge their batteries with wood frog and salamander eggs and again later, when they emerge to lay their eggs.

It is during this time that they are most vulnerable to natural predators­ and automobiles.

Fast and fluid in the water, most turtles are as slow and cumbersome on land as piano movers. Except for the spotted turtles. The little turtles seem to realize that their time on the asphalt is deadly and move quickly.

I learned to recognize their sprints from my home and quickened my own step to try to save them.

Many were the times I sprinted down the road to help them complete their perilous crossings. I saved many. But as the number of houses on my road increased, so too did the traffic and the body count.

The final death sentence for the turtles was a 60-home subdivision. Construction vehicles first and then cars were a constant on the road. I was gladdened by those motorists who stopped to let the turtles pass, but they were far outnumbered by those who did not.

Short of quitting my job for two months and keeping 24-hour vigil, there was little I could do to stop the slaughter.

But I persevered. I marked their nesting sites, mowed my lawn cautiously as I watched for them in the grass, and tried to educate my neighbors on the turtles’ ways. I even attempted a clumsy Caesarean on a dead spotted turtle, thinking I could salvage her eggs and be a surrogate parent.

But every year the number of dead turtles increased, annually including two or three spotted turtles.

When we sold the home after nearly 30 years, I wondered who would watch out for the turtles. I left the new owner a carefully written instruction sheet on where the turtles nested in the yard, when the quarter-size hatchlings emerged, and the care to take when driving on the road. I hope she’s paying attention. I know I am.

More so than ever now when I drive roads near water, I take care – my eyes always on the road surface for the glint of sun off wet black domes or the dusty gray of a basking turtle. It is the most penance I can do.

By Greg Lowell, Coverts Cooperator

Photo taken by Jack Gleason, Master Gardener and Tree Steward

I know of no one who likes grey squirrels. They take over bird feeders, live in attics, and are considered an all-around pest.

But once in a while, a pest becomes an individual, a sympathetic individual, who captures your heart. Enter Stumpy the Squirrel.

Two years ago, shortly after I retired from high-school biology teaching, Stumpy appeared at my bird feeders with the other squirrels, eating my expensive “sunflower chips” and causing anxiety in my feather-lined heart. On second glance though, I noticed he was different, an apparent target of bullying. What was going on here?

Stumpy was missing half of his long, furry, squirrel tail. What had happened to him? He didn't seem to be the worse for wear, so I put him in my Oh, there's Stumpy file as the only gray squirrel I could distinguish from the rest of the horde. A squirrel I could use perhaps as an indicator for how long they stay in the same place and perhaps even how long they live.

Last fall, when I again had time to observe my backyard, there was Stumpy, now frolicking with his pals: fat, happy, and eating his share and more of the gold-plated sunflower chips. Winter three was coming up. I knew that one squirrel does not a population make, but Stumpy could still serve as a pretty good indicator about local grey squirrel life. In fact, life seemed not too bad in my back yard: great food, plenty of places for nests, friends to play with. But what about sex, I wondered? Was Stumpy ignored by the girls because of his tail? (Or the boys? I’d assumed Stumpy was a male, but I don’t really know.)

By midwinter, Stumpy's fur appeared a little less thick and full. He wasn’t frisky, but lethargic. There must be something wrong with him. With binoculars, I saw him close up, and what a sight! He had a patch on his right side that had no fur, with one big, red open sore on the skin.

What had happened? It was 15 degrees. I figured that might be the end of Stumpy. But how would I know? Do a squirrel inventory every day? Stumpy didn’t show up on a regular basis. I went searching for information.

A local veterinarian told me Stumpy might be suffering from mange, a mite infection. Or he might be biting and irritating an itchy spot. As winter is stressful on all wildlife, Stumpy’s tail problem, possible mange, or even feeding on contaminated bird feed could all have contributed to his appearance.

Following the habits of grey squirrels may not seem exciting, but I did want to see how Stumpy fared. I set up a blog to record my Stumpy watch. In response, a college friend suggested I trap him and take him to a recovery center. Hmmm, not sure about that one.

When I showed Stumpy’s picture to my next door neighbor, his comment was, “Oughta be shot for eating my bird seed.” Not what I really wanted to hear. Our four-year-old granddaughter followed Stumpy and wanted to make him into a princess.

As the winter wore on, Stumpy appeared, though not regularly. When I did see him, his skin looked better, and his appetite was great. As squirrels aren’t herd animals, his solitary appearances didn’t seem abnormal.

Perched on a tree branch during a January snowstorm, Stumpy looked shocked at having to go through 12 inches of snow to the birdfeeders. Instead, he went back up his tree making noises whose meaning I could only imagine.

On a sunny but cold March day, Stumpy sat on his branch again, with his injury facing the sun, seeming to just enjoy the warmth. I startled him and he ran around the back of the tree and disappeared. I could see his naked skin and his injury were still there, but he seemed none the worse for it.

Now it’s May. The trees have leafed out, the grass is up, and I continue to see Stumpy at the feeder every couple of days. Amazingly, most of his fur has grown back, except for a small spot, and he looks fat and happy. But a number of other squirrels, including a red squirrel, now seem to be afflicted with the same skin condition.

What I’d taken for granted, the presence of grey squirrels just outside my window, has turned me, an experienced science teacher, into to a humble observer. It’s given me the awareness that my condo backyard is not just as a grassy knoll mowed all summer by noisy machines, but an inspiring and thought-provoking corner of our planet with its own secrets and mysteries.


By Suzy Martin, Master Gardener and Community Tree Steward

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

Actually, on any given day that's clear and not too adverse weather-wise, you can find an ideal place to take a walk. Seniors, including me, may get cabin fever during the winter months and cast about for something else to do besides card games and daytime television.

The Franklin Falls Dam is just a couple of miles from my house. So, on with the boots, coat, caps and gloves and off to the dam I go.

Here, the Army Corps of Engineers has provided the citizens of New Hampshire with an ideal multipurpose, year-round recreational facility, which draws dog-walkers, parents with small children, hikers, snowshoers, cross-county skiers, runners, mountain bikers, hunters­and in other parts of the Franklin Falls Reservoir, canoers, kayakers and fishermen.

The gate to the facility is open during most week days. As you arrive at the kiosk adjacent to the parking lot and want to know more, pick one of three brochures to peruse while you take your walk on a paved road that gently takes you to the dam.

As you stroll along, you pass a nice restroom facility on the right. Further along on the left you pass the ranger station that is staffed during the day. It houses the rangers' office and has a phone you can call on your cell phone if you have an emergency while visiting. The number is printed on all their brochures. They respond quickly and expertly when asked to do so, but otherwise remain discretely out of sight.

These rangers are an example of your tax dollars well spent. They not only keep watch on their facility, they provide educational programs to local schoolchildren and homeschoolers and host a variety of events throughout the year.

Past the ranger station, the road turns slightly left and goes down a gentle slope. Both sides of the road are lined with groves of evergreen trees planted several decades ago, which provide cooling shade in summer for folks who want to sit awhile on one of several picnic benches tucked under the trees.

For those who like to gather in groups, there is a pavilion that can be reserved for an afternoon gathering. There's also a playground for the children. I move on down the drive to a small sign that reads, "Piney Point." Just past the sign is another small parking area for those who don't have the energy to do the whole two miles of road. As I pass the parking area, an impressive vista opens.

The dam is about 200 hundred feet above the Pemigewasset River. Looking across the dam along the road that extends to the edge of the spillway on the west side, I can see the traffic along Route 3. To the left is a view of Piney Point as the birds see it. To the right is the so-called impoundment area. Unless there is a serious threat of downstream flooding, this is a prime recreational area. The Corps has built roads designed for their service vehicles that walkers can use.

The stroll along the top of the dam ends at still another parking area. A gazebo, complete with picnic table and benches, is perched on a flat expanse with a view of the river flowing from under the dam on one side and Piney Point on the other. There I have the feeling that I’m far from the cares of the world and daytime television. Only the walk back stands between me and the rest of the world, but it seems just far enough to change my feeling of being trapped by four walls and stale air.

I head to Piney Point­the trail for people who want a real hike. The trail down to the point provides the greatest challenge, dropping away from the road rather sharply through broken hardwoods and brush for a little less than a quarter of a mile.

Once at the base of the dam, I traverse to the point where the trail begins a loop through the woods on the point. It meanders along the shore of the flowing river until I reach the point and then reverses direction and proceeds along the back water section of the area.

The whole trip from the edge of the road and back is a little over a mile. (There are cutoff connectors for those who don't want to do the whole loop.) Wear your hiking boots for this trip, bring a walking stick and be prepared for a workout.

Of course, Piney Point and the dam walk are just a small part of the entire system associated with the trails, woods, and waters of Franklin Falls Reservoir. A mountain-bike trail map is available online-and of course, all the bike trails are also available to hikers. This map is just for the east side of the compound accessed by Route 127.

One of my favorite areas on the west side­quite a distance up the river, in the area between the towns of Hill and Bristol­is the Profile Falls Recreation Area, a real gem for those of us who like to fish and canoe or kayak.

You access the area off Route 3A about two miles north of Hill. Just beyond the bridge that crosses the Smith River, you make a left onto the road that leads to the parking area for the facility. I won't spoil the surprise of this little gem, beyond saying you won't be disappointed!

Editor's note: click here to learn more about Franklin Falls Dam.

By Bill Dawson, Tree Steward

Sunday, January 7, 2009 at about 11:30 am, I spotted 30 to 40 turkeys crossing the field, across our back yard, on to our front yard and up the street. I got home in time to see them heading into the woods and up the hill, a swarm of curved dark shapes against the snow. A friend who lives at the top of the hill next to the oak forest watched them descend on her large crabapple tree still loaded with apples. The apples are gone now.

These aren't the first turkeys that have come to visit. Several summers ago we had what became almost a pet family of turkeys living in the neighborhood. One morning in mid-June I looked out the kitchen window and saw what looked like a flock of turtles at the base of a rock in the hedgerow. Dumbfounded, I stayed glued to the sight and watched the strange menagerie move across the field toward our garden. As they came closer, I realized I was watching nine baby turkeys under the watchful eye of the proud, stately mother.

They grew fast, feasting on field insects. Grasshoppers weren't a problem that summer. In about two months they grew to adult size, and it became hard to distinguish the mother among all the long necks poking above the field grasses. Although we'd heard turkeys can damage gardens, other than scuffing up some bare ground, we found no damage. But they did leave a wonderful collection of turkey feathers.

The turkeys gradually became braver, waddling right up to the house and circling about the lawn, feeding ravenously. One day in late summer, I watched in astonishment as they marched up from the garden across the lawn right up to our back patio, and hovered about the drive, gazing at the garage end of our two-story saltbox-style house. Then, with an awkward fluttering of huge wings, one flew to the ridgepole of the garage, landing near the weathervane.

Soon all nine were on the roof and proceeded to trot across the breezeway section of the roof, from which they then jumped to the peak of the main house. Next, I saw one on top of the chimney. We have a huge maple tree that soars above the house, and I was totally flabbergasted when one flew up to a branch in the tree. Cautiously, one after another, they all summoned up the courage to follow.

The last one was obviously not enthused about the idea, but finally made the leap from the roof ridgepole. They continued on to adjacent trees where they were surprisingly well hidden for their night-time roost. By roosting in a different location every night, turkeys hide from predators.

Checking the N.H. Fish and Game Web site, I learned that 25 turkeys were re-introduced to New Hampshire in 1975. Today, about 36,000 turkeys live here. If the flock of 30 really has only one tom, and 29 hens that each lay 10 eggs, with a conservative survival rate of five, we could have 145 more turkeys next summer plus the 30 parents. That’s 175 turkeys!

Obviously, they're thriving in our wooded suburban setting, with its combination of lawns full of insects, native shrubs full of berries, and mature oak forests producing nutrient-rich acorns. The pond where we saw them first is fed by small streams flowing off the nearby forest-covered hill. The stream flows all winter long, icing over only during the most brutal cold snaps.

I read that turkeys mate in March. Their nests are just hollows in grass on the ground. Hens lay 10 to 12 eggs; one a day for almost two weeks. The hens incubate the eggs for 28 days, but are sensitive to disturbances during this time and will readily abandon a nest. The poults are ready to leave the nest 24 hours after hatching. The poults I saw in mid-June must have been about four to six weeks old. The poults can fly when they are two or three weeks old; from then on they will roost in trees at night.

A New York Department of Environmental Conservation pamphlet, The Wild Turkey in New York, explains how turkeys survive the bitter winter weather:
During the winter, turkeys reduce their range, diminish their daily activities and often form large flocks. They frequently spend time in valley farm fields feeding on waste grain and manure spread by the farmers. Spring seeps, which are usually free of ice and snow, are also favorite feeding areas. When a severe winter storms strikes, turkeys can spend as much as a week or more on the roost, waiting the weather out. Studies have shown that healthy wild turkeys can live up to 2 weeks without food.

Incredible! As I write, my 30 turkeys, stuffed full of crabapples, must be roosting on tree branches waiting for the sun to break through tomorrow. That will be a sight to see.

By Anne Krantz, Master Gardener and Community Tree Steward

Editor's note: To help biologists gather data on the health and distribution of turkeys during the challenging winter months, the state Fish and Game Department wants to hear from you. If you see a flock of wild turkeys flock between now and the end of March, report your sighting using the electronic survey form at www.wildnh.com/turkeysurvey. Please don't report multiple sightings of the same flock.

Recent fluctuating temperatures make venturing out onto the swamp a somewhat dicey activity. To be on the safe side, I decided instead to snowshoe around, rather than onto, the swamp and investigate an area I’d not explored before. It rises up behind the swamp to the north and had long been calling to me.

I headed down the path and out the gate, continuing into the woods. In no time the old stone wall that still marks the boundary between our stewardship and the next was standing before me. I found it easy enough to clamber over the wall, even with snowshoes on. The deer I was tracking had found it equally easy. These tracks were on the small side, so perhaps it was a young animal and it clearly came alone. I looked for evidence of browse but didn’t see any. Did nothing appeal to it?

Soon a lovely pine grove enveloped me. The trees were tall and the snow depth light. I saw pine cones and the little tracks of squirrels moving from tree to tree. A peaceful quiet hung there, with just a gentle murmur from the mild movement of the trees. I was reminded of a Robert Frost poem “The Sound of Trees,” in which he comments that the voice of trees is the one sound we “wish to bear” near our homes. The trees call to him, talking of going. I know they often call me to come and explore. They are most persuasive.

But today I was exploring tracks, and there in the grove were the unmistakable marks of a turkey. This was a treat. I love those ugly, gawky-looking birds. After moving into this house, I waited six years to see a turkey before looking out one afternoon a couple years ago and finding 42 in front of the house! They pecked along the driveway and into the front yard, while I ran from window to window, counting, taking pictures, and enjoying. Since then, we’ve had occasional sightings, and now, here I was following where one had gone not long before.

Up an incline it went (did it pant as I was doing?) and across a flowing stream. The rushing water confirmed my fears for walking on the swamp. Better to be here on a knoll, following a turkey’s path. Thanks to the snowshoes, crossing on the large snow-covered stones in the stream bed was no trouble at all. Soon I had moved into another grove of big pine trees, their edged bark dark against the snow.

It’s easy to understand why prehistoric peoples considered groves to be sacred places. Their height blocks out everything outside them. Every sound uttered within takes on a deeper meaning. Surely here spirits can communicate with us mere mortals. Is that chickadee really calling out to another of its flock or is it speaking to me? And what is its message? If I concentrate, can I decipher it?

Eventually, I leave the grove and turkey trail and wander down to the edge of the swamp. How often I’ve looked up at this area while pushing through the wind on the swamp’s snow-covered surface. Here, the trees break the wind and I can easily explore the stumps the beavers have left behind. There are few hardwoods here, just a couple of stumps of young trees a few inches in diameter. The cuts are old and gray. The beavers have moved to other areas around the swamp. From here, I can see all the heron nests from last summer. The older ones, big and solid looking, sit firmly on the dead pines. They look like they will be there forever. The newest ones appear to barely cling to the branches. If they aren’t refurbished in spring, they will be gone by July.

As I continue my journey, I cross the stream again farther up. I’ve lost the turkey tracks, but have found some even more interesting to me: two small paw prints, one slightly ahead of the other; and ahead of both, two larger prints side by side. Later at home, a check in a book on animal tracks confirms my suspicions. Earlier in the day, a rabbit had hopped through the upper edge of the pine forest. If you’ve ever watched a rabbit jump, you know the rear feet come forward ahead of the front feet. Thus its direction was clear­up the hill, into the sunnier area of young hardwood saplings and brush.

I would have enjoyed following it a while longer, but, unfortunately, my time grew short. I turned and headed back towards the house. Sharing time with the wild beings that live in this land is a privilege. I had seen the tracks of three fellow creatures and heard the calls of a few more, but my senses are imperfect. How many other creatures had been watching me, while I, all unawares, blundered around in the snow? Quite a few, I hope.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

The thermometer read 24, no wind whispered, and I stood on the driveway inhaling that fine autumn air. The sky, as blue as a kid’s crayon, shimmered as the sun climbed over the ridge to warm our valley. With maple leaves having already dropped, copper and gold blinded me with their fluorescence. A gorgeous autumn morning.

So quiet, so still, and then I heard it: fall. Fall, the verb.

Warmth from the sun had finally reached the treetops behind our home, melting the frost and knocking the final bits of stubbornness from the leaves. They fluttered and cascaded to the forest floor, scratching branches along the way, swooshing a bit in an unfelt air current. With no other sound to compete, they cluttered and clanked, sounding almost as metallic as they looked.

A blue jay squawked, perhaps alerting the others that summer’s camouflage would soon no longer protect them. Perhaps the jay complained about the first deep, deep frost. Perhaps it called an early morning greeting, to wake up the rest of the flock.

Nevertheless, in a week or two, the trees will be bare of this vibrant splendor and we will enter the second phase of autumn: Stick Season. Lovely for its austere elbows and knees of silver and pewter, Stick Season allows us to peer deeper into the woods, watching wildlife meander through the underbrush.

We watch as boulders appear: big, granite, glacial erratics that we haven’t seen since last winter. We welcome them back, though, obviously, they've been sitting there year-round for thousands of years. With each new layer of fall leaves slowly decomposing, the soil around them gets richer each year. Little critters burrow into that soft, matted fluff, hiding seeds and making well-insulated nests.

Perhaps the weathered boulders shift a bit, or crack apart through the freeze-and-thaw cycles during the year, but for the most part they stay put. Some of these boulders, at least the parts we can see, are much bigger than our cars. We are happy to have them remain where they are.

We admire gravity, keeping all that rock in place, and we dodge gravity as our big old oak trees release their acorns. It’s a hard-hat zone near our wood-yard. We hear those plump, nut-nuggets pummel and ricochet off the wheelbarrow, the log-pile covers, and the car if we've forgotten to move it from the ambush. Sometimes, for only for a second or two, we mistake those gray, lichen- and moss-covered boulders for visiting wildlife. Once we debated the bizarre winter arrival of a 36-inch-long rock under our bird feeder. That bobcat quickly decimated the gray squirrel population that frequents our winter-only bird feeders.

Soon, the white stuff will fall. It will cover those fallen leaves and highlight the boulders. Snow will allow us to see the animal tracks of those that live and forage in the forest behind us.

Some beech and oak leaves will cling all winter to the branches. The sun bleaches them of color and they’ll flutter in unseen breezes making a racket of white noise. Finally, they’ll either slowly tatter to pieces or drop when spring’s new buds push their stubborn selves off the branch.

The morning was really waking up now, the sun higher in that cyan sky. Suddenly I heard it dripping, then raining: Ping, ping, ping. How could that be, without a cloud in the sky?

I puzzled for only a second, then grinned and turned to our house. The sun had finally hit the metal roof. The white layer of frost had melted off the edges and dripped to the next roof. Plunk, plunk, plunk.

The frost shower only lasted a minute or two, and I thought of the fleeting moments of life that we so often miss. Find your minute of wonder. Listen to the leaves fall or the frost melt and drip. Inhale that crisp air in the morning or the sensuous deep funk of decaying leaves in the late afternoon. Embrace that tapestry of color by jumping into the leaf pile you just raked. Or crush one of those leaves in your hand and inhale its fragrance. Soon, it will be gone for another year.

By Laura Richardson, Master Gardener

A pair of white ducks appeared in our neighborhood pond in August. Each time we drove by, we saw them reveling in their element, bottoms up, foraging for food or just swimming around unimpeded in the pond.

It was obvious these weren’t wild ducks, accustomed to the seasonal comings and goings of nature’s cycles. They were domestic ducks, unable to fly or to defend themselves from predators. Still, they survived happily in the pond in late summer.

As fall approached, several of the neighbors joined us in concern for their fate. My grandsons, with their mother, brought food and the ducks welcomed them and even seemed to anticipate the children’s visits complete with handouts. These ducks were used to human beings. No doubt they had been adorable, fluffy ducklings at Easter time.

But by the end of summer, the charming babies had become full-grown ducks, perhaps a bit aggressive and needing accommodations that some suburban family couldn’t provide. Were they then abandoned to fend for themselves, without thought for their ultimate fate? Did parents persuade their children, and perhaps themselves, that the ducks would live happily ever after in our neighborhood pond?

September passed, and then as October moved on, the neighborhood became increasingly concerned. The ducks themselves grew more dependent on the children’s provisions. We all knew if we did nothing these two couldn’t survive once the pond froze over. They would become dinner for someone, if not for Mr. Fox, then for the coyotes or a fisher.

So, one day the children and their mother arrived at our barn with the ducks in the back of the Subaru. The female had been easily captured, but the drake was skittish. The timely arrival of a neighbor saved the day and the pair came to their adopted home in a pen by the barn.

We wondered how they would get on with our ancient Chinese geese­noisy creatures but otherwise harmless. A single Indian Runner drake shares their pen. (His mate succumbed to a weasel last winter. I found her headless carcass in the pen one snowy morning.) What would they think of these new arrivals?

As it turned out, the ducks were welcomed and moved in without incident. They may have missed the freedom of the pond, but they were glad to have food and shelter as winter approached and the cold intensified. Each morning I broke the ice in their water pans, and all drank gratefully.

No sooner had the days begun noticeably to lengthen, in late February or early March, than a white egg appeared in the shelter. Every day, through the spring and early summer, Mrs. Duck produced a single egg. We used them in various ways and found them rich and tasty. We saved a half dozen for the nearby Montessori pre-school that likes to hatch some chicks or ducks each spring in their incubator. Some of these orphans come back to our farm, either to lay eggs or to find their way to the freezer in the fall.

Sure enough, after 28 days of incubation, the duck eggs hatched, producing four fluffy ducklings. School was over, so home they came to our “nursery.” When they outgrew the small nursery pen, we introduced them to the ducks and geese at the barn.

Mrs. Goose embraced motherhood so enthusiastically that she crushed one of her offspring. Another succumbed to her overprotective instincts; she was too big and her size overwhelmed them. The others were returned to a safer pen.

After a few weeks we tried again to integrate the little flock of water fowl. This time the Indian Runner drake proved such an ardent lover that the poor ducklings were tattered and thoroughly intimidated by his attentions. So, they are back in a safe haven for now, and we shall have roast duck later this fall.

Such a responsibility we assume for our fellow creatures even if we will eventually eat them! And the parent ducks, rescued from the pond, will survive another winter to produce eggs. The children at the Montessori school can again experience the miracle of tiny ducklings emerging from their shells. We’ll make egg salad of the rest.

By Carolyn Baldwin, Community Tree Steward

The swamp is quiet now. The great nests high atop the dead trees stand empty and silent. The 18 young great blue herons and their parents have all left. Quiet reigns where once there were raucous cries.

The red-winged blackbirds and grackles have also left, as well as the tree swallows with their iridescent blue wings. The very air seems empty, bereft of their brilliant colors and acrobatic swoops. The deep-throated croaks of the bullfrogs have disappeared. Once the night was filled with their symphonic calls. I look in vain for the four young mallards that swam along so comically behind their mother. She and they have left. Where are they now? Have they joined a group on a larger body of water or have they already begun the great trek south to warmer weather?

The crickets still grind out their evening songs, but slower now, as the cooler nights lessen their enthusiasm. Sometimes a blue jay will squawk about something as it flies over, but mostly, there’s a sense of waiting, a pause in time between the noise and exuberance of summer and the slumber of winter. It’s like the time in the evening when you lie in bed, waiting for sleep, and you listen hard for sounds. Each seems magnified against the empty background.

After clear skies for much of the summer, we’ve had thick gray clouds and heavy precipitation. The rain has brought a new sound, one missing for most of the summer: water running over and through the beavers’ dam. I expect the beavers hear it too and are working to shore up their construction before the winter ice appears. I like the sound of the running water. It’s a soft sound, a background sound, a soothing cadence to the soft rustle of dried grasses.

A swamp maple is already showing off its new garment, the first of many to add a final burst of color before the bare starkness of early winter comes. Soon the sound of wind in the trees will change from a whisper of moving foliage to a rustling of desiccated brown leaves.

Up in the evergreens, the squirrels are busy and not as quiet. With self-important chirps, they dash from limb to limb, out to the very end, knocking off seeds and pine cones, then quickly scurry down the trunk to the ground to gather up all they can. Last fall they must have buried some sunflower seeds in the area behind our shed, for now tall sunflowers nod their heavy heads there like small giants asleep on their feet. How many other plants have begun life thanks to the squirrels’ need to stash food away for colder days?

Suddenly, the winterberry has erupted in brilliant red. One day the berries were a subtle green and the next, scarlet pearls shone out from the leaves. How did it happen so quickly? Nearby, the goldenrod is flaunting sunny hues to light up the shortening days, while the asters add soft shades of purple to the final hours of summer. The elderberries too, are rich in color now, the deep purple looking luscious enough to eat. A small cluster of black-capped chickadees flits from branch to branch, calling as they go, while searching the bark for insects. They let me stand close by, still and silent, and eavesdrop on their conversation.

Evening slips in earlier now. The air is different­crisper, sharper. The sun, already lower in the sky, begins to sink down behind the tall pines long before I’ve finished my twilight walks. I watch the bats dart about overhead. Flit, flit­and gone, lost against the darkening trunks. Only when they fly above the treetops can I see them silhouetted against the sky. Feast now, I tell them, winter is coming.

Everything is in abeyance, waiting, waiting. Standing here, I feel as if Mother Nature is holding her breath, stretching out the last, lingering days of summer while she gathers her energies for the great burst of autumn and its riotous exuberance of reds, oranges, and yellows. And then, at last, the deep rest and deeper quiet of winter.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

It rained last night. Anytime it rains in early June, we have to search the yard carefully before letting the dogs out, because early summer rain brings fearsome guests: female snapping turtles, intent on finding soft ground for burying their eggs. We’ve identified three separate individuals over the years. Two are huge, one merely large. How do I know they’re snapping turtles? What other turtle is eight to 14 inches long (some grow to 20 inches) and weighs up to 70 pounds, with a massive head and a long sawtooth tail? When you approach many turtles on land, they pull in their heads and legs and hide under their protective shell, but the snapper can’t do that. Instead, she’ll likely turn and snap. Approach with care! Her powerful jaws can sever a finger or toe.

Once I had to move a turtle from an area, because I was afraid she might hurt the dogs. I got a wheelbarrow and a shovel, intending to lift her gently into the wheelbarrow and transport her outside the fenced yard to an area with nice sandy soil. As soon as the shovel came near her, she snapped at it and held on. I actually lifted her up and into the wheelbarrow just through the strength of her jaws on the shovel. Some jaws!

As she drags her heavy body through the mulch, mother snapper leaves a clear trail through the yard. Periodically she’ll stop and dig a test hole. She needs to go deep to bury the 20 to 40 ping-pong-ball-sized eggs she’s carrying. I can’t tell you how many plants I’ve lost when a snapper has bulldozed through the garden, knocking over tomato plants, digging up corn stalks, or disrupting the young cucumbers. I guess she figures her kind were here long before I started vegetable gardening, so if she wants to check out the soil, she can.

Watching any turtle dig a hole is fascinating. Where we need shovels, turtles use powerful hind legs. A leg pivots and goes down, scooping up dirt, depositing it beside the hole. As the hole gets deeper, the female twists, one side down and out then the other, down and out. Half the turtle ends up in the hole before she’s satisfied with the depth.

Slowly she’ll lay the eggs, pulling her head inward as each egg is pushed out. When all the eggs are finally in the hole, she begins covering them up. Now the legs pull the soil back into the hole and tamp down: first one leg, then the other, dumping and tamping, dumping and tamping.
By this point, her energy is nearly gone. She’s traveled quite a distance from the pond or swamp where she lives, searched for the perfect spot, dug the hole, laid the eggs, and filled the hole back up.

Here’s the really amazing part: I’ve watched a snapper dig a hole and noted exactly where it is in relation to a landmark. Once she’s gone, I’ve headed out to the site but couldn’t find even a trace of a disrupted surface. How could she do that?

A snapper mother’s role is finished when the nest is buried. She doesn’t lurk nearby to watch the eggs and protect the young hatchlings, but leaves them entirely on their own. Mammals find many of the nests and relish the nutritious eggs. If the nest isn’t found, the eggs will hatch in August, and the young will either make their way to water or hide out until the following spring. Even when small, snappers are unmistakable­sharp claws on the feet, large head and long tail. Once I counted 18 over a half-hour period as they hatched, dug out of the ground, and made their way down the path.

Mother snapper’s goal now is to get back to the safety of the water. It takes great effort to haul her exhausted body over land so the journey takes her a long, long time. She’ll walk a short distance, then rest a while, then drag herself a little further on before resting again. Many times, she’ll have to cross roads to get back to the body of water she calls home. That’s where she’s most vulnerable. Cars do take the lives of many snappers.

Once back in her element, she’ll recover, feeding on fish, crayfish, reptiles, birds, small mammals, and plant material. When winter comes, she’ll hibernate in the muddy bottom or under a log or some submerged debris and wait until spring comes around again. Then when the early summer rains soften the soil, she’ll haul herself out of the water and start the journey again.

Maybe next year I should set up a sandbox. Do you think she’d use it?

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

A fist-sized American toad clambered awkwardly up the steep hill from the wetland to my garden, my oversized puppy having prodded the sluggish animal out of its daytime nap. I shooed the dog away and picked up the unhappy toad, which I impulsively called Mikey.

Mikey thanked me for the unwanted attention by relieving himself on me (warning: they do this a lot), but unsurprised and undaunted, I carefully placed him under a large broken clay pot that lay in two pieces near a leaky faucet, hoping I could lure him to work in my garden.

Mikey tried out both rooms of the duplex pot and then snuggled down in the damp soil to wait for the evening hunt, leading me to conclude that, like the '70s cereal commercial, “Mikey likes it!” Pleased with myself, I resumed gardening.

I’m particularly fascinated by toads and become attached to my small amphibian friends like Mikey, who seem friendly (or at least easy to catch), don’t bite, and don’t give you warts. Male American toads like Mikey (Bufo americanus) emit a long, musical trill to attract females for mating. The N.H. Fish and Game Department posts photos, information and recordings of the American toad (and other native frogs) on its web site. You’ll find some amazing sounds there, sounds you’ll realize you’ve heard many times but didn’t listen to or recognize as frogs and toads.

Closely related to frogs, toads like Mikey live in drier habitats and uplands and have stubbier legs with less webbing on their feet. Female toads lay long egg strings instead of the masses laid by frogs. Toads also condense their cycle of metamorphosis, minimizing the aquatic (egg and tadpole) portion of their lives, with a longer toadlet and juvenile toad stage.

Dogs and many other animals don’t usually bother toads (more than once anyway) because of the glands on the back of their heads that secrete a white milky (sometimes toxic) substance. When that doesn’t work, the toad might suck in air to blow itself into much a larger, more intimidating animal.

Snakes, apparently undaunted by either of these techniques, are said to eat many slow-moving toads, though I wish they’d work on the chipmunks in my garden instead.

The first toads of summer remind me that the cycle of renewal is upon us. I sometimes take the biggest and strongest breeding adults like Mikey from dangerous roadway areas into my garden, where they serve as allies in my annual battle against slugs and nasty bugs. Toads seem to like my garden, because some areas are shady, moist toad havens that grow slug-attracting plants like Hosta. These natural warriors dispatch slugs and other nasties in abundance.

Next to pollinators such as bees, wasps, and hummingbirds, toads top my list of favorite garden buddies, coming out at night to hunt. Sometimes I’m lucky, and a female toad lays a long egg string in my water garden, the eggs hatching into tadpoles in a matter of days. The tadpoles then become toadlets, tiny and impossibly cute versions of Mikey, that some damp evenings I see scattering in all directions, each hopping frenetically towards new territory.

I imagine most of the toadlets perish, killed by cars or eaten by snakes and birds, but there are so many. Some will survive and prosper, some will carry on their heritage and become the mature toads that we know and love.

Maybe Mikey will turn out to be Michelle and lay eggs in my water garden again this year. Less than two months later, a toadlet army will be everywhere on rainy nights, making it impossible to navigate a car or even walk in a straight line without squishing some of the diminutive troops.

But some of the toughest and luckiest of summer’s soldiers will survive the journey to new territories, dispersing from the hatch to eventually overwinter by using their strong hind legs like shovels to burrow deep into damp soil. More friends for next year’s garden!

By Eileen Pannetier, Master Gardener

Weather-wise, it was a decidedly unpleasant day. Low clouds blocked all views of the distant mountains, while the chilling wind drove spitting rain through our hair and against our faces. We were at the shore of the lake to introduce a West Coast visitor to the fine art of fishing. We had a container of worms and an old rod and reel, but the wet wind numbed our fingers when we tried to thread a wiggling worm onto a hook.

We persevered. Finally, the worm and hook were dangling in the water, awaiting a hungry mouth. We waited with them, and waited and waited. Nothing seemed to be running except the wind.

Not far off, two ducks came in to land on the water. Unfortunately, they were too far away for me to identify them clearly. It wasn’t easy to pick out their markings. Why hadn’t I thought to bring along the binoculars? There was a quick flash of white. Hooded Mergansers perhaps? These are such lovely ducks. The males have white breasts with two black bars on each side and their black heads have fan-shaped white crests which they raise to entice the females. Add in brown flanks and you have one very attractive creature.

Suddenly from not far away we heard the call of a loon. “Listen!” we cried as the bird once again gave its haunting call. A few minutes later, the loon and a companion came into view. They are such stunning birds with their brilliant red eyes and all-over black and white coloration. Down into a deep dive went one bird, in search of the same fish we were seeking. A few minutes later, it popped up several yards away. The birds seemed to take turns hunting. Apparently they were having the same poor luck fishing that we were.

Suddenly, just off a jutting of land, I noticed a fin going around in circles. We decided to investigate as this was the closest we’d been to seeing a fish in nearly an hour. We scrambled down the rocks to move closer to the still visible fin. Straight down the fish’s head pointed as it swam in circles, and then the fish flipped to one side before moving to a new area. It wasn’t long before we saw a second fish doing the same thing. Our visitor was happy to actually see a couple fish in the water, but we knew that, with spawning in mind, these fish weren’t going to be tempted by any wormy bait. So, we simply watched and enjoyed this glimpse into nature’s way of creating the next generation of fish.

The cold and wet had now become distinctly uncomfortable. It was time to admit defeat and give up on the fishing. We trudged back to the car, consoling our visitor that next time would be better. On the drive home, we decided to take a detour to show him more of our beautiful area. We choose a spot with wide, mown fields and views of the lake and several islands.

Despite the low clouds, he could see enough to recognize that the surroundings were truly spectacular. The wind drove the lake water into small waves, while mist and fog alternately shrouded then revealed the islands. We sat in the car and talked about how special the lake is in all the seasons of the year: reflecting the beauty of the fall foliage, white with snow and dotted with bobhouses in winter, glinting with sunlight in spring and summer.

Suddenly, one of us noticed a movement over near the woods. Out walked two wild turkeys, a hen and a jake. Heads jerking out and in as they walked, they seemed totally unaware of us. What a treat to watch them.

The turkeys poked around in the short grass, searching for seeds and insects. They’ll eat just about anything. They’re so ugly that they are actually beautiful. I look for them whenever I pass a field, especially one where corn had been grown for they love to search there for food.

Sometimes in the summer when you are driving down a road, you’ll see a hen followed by a dozen or more young, then another hen. The little ones scurry to keep up, while a hen will cluck to them, “Hurry! Hurry!” Our two moved off over a rise and out of view.

It was time to head home. On the way, we counted up our haul:

Fish taken: none
Fish seen: two
Ducks seen: two
Loons seen: two
Turkeys seen: two
        
All in all, not a bad day of fishing.

By Susan Poirier, Master Gardener

Over the winter, I began reading about making ponds and waterfalls. Visions of rocks started dancing in my head about the middle of February. I drew and redrew my plans. With my wife looking over my shoulder (no doubt contemplating the rocks in my head), I proceeded to lay out an ambitious rock project.

As the snow melted in late March, I was out on the slope in back of the garage with string and stakes, laying out the watercourse of the waterfall. I bought the necessary materials for the pool, water system, and electrical power for the pump. Then I waited a month for the ground to thaw.

Following the expert directions I found in books, I started from the lowest point. I set the preformed pond in place and backfilled around the upper perimeter. I left the lower side open and built a structure to contain the electrical supply.

A water feature in the yard undergoes constant transition. Now that warmer weather has arrived this season, I've realized I need to change the liner on the waterfall and move more rocks to improve the flow of the water.

Once I've completed the structural work, I'll add plantings to the fringes of the watercourse: astilbe and daylilies around the pond, sedum and vinca hugging the rocks along the watercourse, creeping thyme and alyssum emerging from the crevices between the rocks. As the season progresses, I'll add lights and potted moon-flower vines for night viewing.

In addition to keeping me occupied, the pond has become a center of gravity for my 15 grandchildren, ages 2 to 20, when they visit. Some of them go straight to the pond before they come into the house. Others come in the front door and briefly sit in front of the television set. But soon they become restless and exit at the back of the house, pausing briefly on the deck to observe the pond and waterfall from on high. Then quickly, they leave their vantage point and follow the waterfall to the pond.

I've provided a bench at the bottom of the slope next to the pond from which they can amuse themselves. Some merely sit and watch the resident frog (he's returned this spring). Others reach into the pond's cool reservoir and hum a quiet tune. The more active ones want to grab a stick and poke at the frog or the water lily. Occasionally, a child will insist on trying to catch the frog. Of course the frog has other ideas and takes evasive steps to avoid capture.

I've had to institute a few pond rules:

No squeezing the frog.
The frog stays at or in the pond.
Don't use sticks to abuse the frog or the pond lily.

After they've tired of the pond, I usually give the grandchildren a tour of my flower and vegetable gardens, where I encourage some supervised picking (though I insist they wash the vegetables before eating). Depending on the age of the child, I may offer to give one a ride in a cart pulled behind my garden tractor.

These activities tend to make the visits more pleasant for all of us. I think it also encourages my grandchildren to have more curiosity about the natural world outside and around their own home as well.

Finally, the care and grooming of the pond area provides me many pleasant hours doing something restorative to the soul. If I feel the need of a bit of shade, I step a few feet from the pond and sit down in the woods, find a fallen log next to a live tree and lean back. Absolutely no watches or cell phones allowed there!

By Bill Dawson, Community Tree Steward
UNH Cooperative Extension

It started with an eel.

When it came writhing out of the black water that long-ago summer night, my second thought, after first wondering how I would get it off my line, was how it ended up here in a small Chester bog pond almost 40 miles from its origin in the Atlantic Ocean.

I knew from past reading the eel had made its way upstream as a one-inch elver nearly a decade earlier and would soon return to the saltwater as a full-grown adult. The contemplation of that epic journey inspired me to retrace its route.

And so some years later on a spring flood, my 12-year old son and I retraced the eel’s journey in a canoe and, in so doing, discovered the Exeter River.

The Exeter is one of the family of New Hampshire coastal rivers that flow eventually to the Atlantic. The Lamprey, Winnicutt, Oyster, and the river I grew up on the Bellamy are virtually indistinguishable from one another. A voyager plunked blindfolded in a kayak into one of these rivers would be hard-pressed to identify it as one or the other when the blindfold was removed.

The rivers are uniformly tea-colored from the leaf tannins, mixing slow bends with fast-drops over shale rapids, but at some point or another­usually over dams constructed by the first settlers to capture the power of falling water­they become salt water.

Over the 20 years or so following my first spring trip, various companions and I made the Exeter River trip several times, dubbing our adventure “Chester to the Sea” the "sea" liberally defined as the salt water below the dam at Exeter.

We typically leave at first light from a roadside in Chester and finish, sometimes in the dark, at Newfields, Adams Point or Newmarket, depending on how well we judged the outgoing tide. We may portage as many as 20 times over dams and blowdowns along the river’s length.

A friend and I once estimated we dipped our paddles 20,000 times during the 12- to 14-hour trip.

We start out bundled against the morning chill, shed clothes in the midday warmth, and rebundle as the shore lights twinkle. Along the way,we see the best and worst of this coastal river that rises in hillside seeps in Chester, gathers itself from many streams, then passes largely unnoticed through six towns on its way to becoming the Squamscott River that finishes in Great Bay.

The best parts of the river are the confusing swamps, where the river’s true course is often determined by the bend of the underwater grass, and the stretches of dark rapids where the tea-colored water disguises the rocks that scrape plastic curlicues from our boats.

The worst parts of the trip aren’t the natural hardships of the journey but seeing the insults to the river done by those who see it as convenient disposal for their leaf piles, old tires and worse. Less obvious, but more damaging, are the chemically-treated lawns at the river’s edge whose lushness spells slow death for the river.

It has been the misfortune of the Exeter River, like the other coastal rivers, to flow through some of the most heavily populated areas of New Hampshire, doubly unfortunate because the rivers have been largely unprotected by the state’s Shoreland Protection Program and so have suffered more insults than their larger inland counterparts.

Each year we’d set out optimistic, hoping that for every clear-cut shoreline with a lawn sweeping down from the house to the water’s edge, we’d find a secluded river bend, and for each discarded tire, we’d find a log covered with painted turtles.

This year, we have cause for new optimism. Changes to the Comprehensive Shoreland Protection Act due to take effect July 1 will protect the Exeter River from Sandown to the sea. The new rules will prohibit many insults to the river.

So each spring when the trout lilies bloom and the water is high enough to allow passage, we’ll once again dip our paddles and head downstream. I like to think that as we paddle, we float above elvers squirming upstream toward a distant bog pond.

By Greg Lowell, Wildlife Coverts Cooperator

These are the days to drink in the precious gold of autumn. As the sun slants low in the sky, the golden hues dazzle us in their brilliance. The black-eyed Susans in the garden flaunt their yellow petals at the wind, which replies by swinging them jauntily in the sunshine. Behind them, tall golden sunflowers nod their huge heads. Each day, the centers expand outward, enveloping the yellow petals until all that’s left are the seeds.

The chipmunks race up the tall stalks to stuff their cheeks with seeds. The chickadees are there too, often hanging upside down as they peck away. A bird releases one seed from its cradle then flies away to crack it open and feast. Are they the birds that have been here all summer long? Or have our birds flown south already and these are migrants from further north, happy to have found a feast to sustain them on their long journey?

Other birds are busy gathering seeds, too. Another flash of gold announces the goldfinch, and soon a small flock of finches is busy eating seedheads around the garden. I watch one bird land on a grass blade nearby and the light stalk sways nearly to the ground. Undeterred, the bird moves along to the very end of the stalk and nibbles on the seed.

The sun dazzles today. It lights up the fading black-eyed Susans and the heavily blooming sunflower stalks, and behind them, the pale gold of clumps of Karl Foerster ornamental grasses. A light breeze is music to the grass, which seems to dance with wild joy.

The goldenrod is buzzing as the bees cover the surface of each cluster of blooms. The bees seem to know that the oncoming cold will soon take the flowers, so they hurry from blossom to blossom. The bees themselves are a golden hue, as are the pouches of pollen on their legs. From sun to flower to bee to pollen, the circle of life itself is represented in the colors of this pigment we humans value so much.

I pick up a fallen maple leaf. The outer edges are a rich, deep red which subtly melds into orange and then gold. In the low sunshine, the colors speak of many things: of spring showers and slowly lengthening days, of the warmth of summer; of cool fall evenings with bright full moons.

On one edge of the leaf, a little grey spider eyes me, then hops to another part of the leaf further away. “Where will you spend the winter?” I ask him. He doesn’t answer, so I put the leaf down where I found it and hope he will survive until spring.

By Susan M. Poirier, UNH Cooperative Extension 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 pewter gray late winter sky hung menacingly, blocking any glimmer from the midday sun. Snowflakes fell intermittently and a cold wind tossed the trees across the horizon. The gloomy surroundings matched my mood of despair, sadness and loneliness. For the third time in two years, we'd had to put down a beloved pet.

Unlike the other dogs, this one was still young; its death unanticipated and shocking. Although the vets had assured me that I could have done nothing to save him, the problem had likely been congenital, I felt such guilt. Shouldn't I have noticed something earlier? He had been my constant shadow, following me despite his trepidation onto the beaver dam in the fall, refusing to leave my side when others offered to take him for walks. He depended on me and I believed I had let him down.

I packed away his bowls,leashes and collar. I knew we'd get another dog in time so I wouldn't get rid of these things. But the open bag of dog food couldn't be kept, so one morning I decided to toss some kibble from it out for the squawking blue jays to eat. Perhaps they'd leave the sunflower feeders alone for a while with kibble so easily obtainable.

Later that day, I sat at the counter that overlooks the back yard. With my mate away for a few days and the dog gone, the house reverberated with emptiness. I settled down with a sandwich and a book and tried to block out the pain. At the end of a chapter, I looked up from the book and blinked twice. Quick! The binoculars!

There on the path were two gray foxes, calmly but rapidly eating the dog kibble. They were the first gray foxes I'd seen.The reddish coat below, the coat of grizzled gray above, the black tipped tail, and the white throat made identification easy. The abdomen of one was somewhat distended, very full and rounded. A later check of a wildlife book confirmed that gray foxes mate in February or March and give birth in March or April. I felt they must be a breeding pair, happy to have obtained a winter meal so easily.

In too short a time, they finished the few pieces and headed down the path towards the woods. I sat there for some time, just savoring the visit of these two wild foxes. I knew they were primarily nocturnal, but do sometimes forage by day. Probably the winter snow had made hunting difficult for them so they had ventured out in daylight.

Now I had a dilemma. I knew it was ill-advised to feed wild mammals. Doing so habituates them to humans, making them more likely to come closer to people and thus putting their lives at jeopardy. But it was winter. There was still snow on the ground. Their main winter food,cottontail rabbits and other small mammals and rodents,had to be hard to catch with this snow. Soon they would have kits to feed and I still had a partial bag of dog food to get rid of.

For the next few days, I scattered some kibble along the path. Throughout the day, I watched whenever I had the chance. Nearly every day they would return. My spirits lifted as I watched the pair feed. The house no longer seemed empty and my loneliness and grief receded.

One day, a solitary fox appeared. Was the other one surrounded by young in a hidden den? If so, he'd need to bring food back to her. I gave in and when my bag of food was empty, I bought another at the store. Over the next few days, I continued to put out the food and to enjoy the fox's brief visits. The snow was melting rapidly. I knew he'd soon be able to catch prey for his growing family. One day I waited in vain. The jays came and ate the kibble. I saw the foxes no more and when the bag was empty, I didn't replace it.

The visiting foxes came five years ago. I've never seen them again, but I still treasure the memory of that brief encounter. At the time my heart most needed easing, and the foxes appeared, helping me far more than I helped them. Of course it's fanciful to think that my beloved pet somehow sent his wild cousins to cheer me; but the Natives who once lived so close to nature would have understood and shared that belief. We are all one in nature, part of a large circle, our lives touching endlessly and seamlessly. My dog is gone, but the memory of this gift remains.

Resolved to avoid the usual holiday stress, I arose one morning recently and planned my day around wrapping Christmas presents. I decided to get out and fill the bird feeders first. Recent snow had coated the ground with almost a foot of light powder and the chickadees were getting impatient. A bucket of black oil sunflower seeds, a few ears of Indian corn saved from this year’s harvest, and I was ready to roll.

As I was filling the feeders hanging on an old lilac bush, the chickadees arrived above me and scolded hungrily. Plodding through the snow, I crossed the yard to a wooden feeder mounted on an old pine stump. This feeder has a roof and is a favorite of blue jays and squirrels, both red and gray. The stump is on uneven ground, so I need to stretch and balance precariously to reach the feeder and pour in seeds and cobs of dried corn.

A slight sound above my head made me look up; an owl flew slowly and silently from a branch just overhead to a tree not too far away. With my eyes locked on the owl, I finished refilling the bird feeder.

The owl continued to perch and watch me as I backed away silently, wondering how much time it would take to run in the house and get the binoculars before it flew away. When I returned, the owl had flown back to its original branch, assured that it was now safe to begin its vigil anew.

I had noticed that in flight it appeared to be a light, creamy beige with touches of a golden brown. In addition, streaks of brown ran vertically down its lighter chest, and under its beak, a band of checkered brown and cream feathers formed a thick ruff about the neck.

Perched with its back to me, its large dark eyes peered first to its left and then its right, head turning to look in my direction, which gave the illusion of a full, 180 degree revolution. For the next three and one half hours, it remained on its watch; apparently, a bird feeder can feed more than the seed eaters on my list.

Suddenly, the owl’s tail lifted and its wings opened; it dove below the feeder and slipped gracefully into the space created between a log and the several inches of new snow. For a few seconds, the owl disappeared, only to reappear suddenly as it emerged from the trough. It sat a few minutes in the snow with a mouse like tail hanging from its beak. Lunch soon over, it flew back to its perch.

What a photo op! Would this owl with its presidential like stature stay long enough to pose? I made another mad scramble to retrieve my camera, and, sure enough, the stately bird posed as patiently as a New Hampshire presidential primary candidate, turning its head first left, then right, then swiveling to look directly behind itself.

I don’t know when the owl left, but it couldn’t have been long before dark because both my husband and I continued to check every chance we had, and it was there until the light faded.

Needless to say, I didn’t get much gift wrapping done. At some point during the afternoon, I checked my bird book and discovered that this was a Barred Owl, the one who calls, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?”

Checking the reports of recent New Hampshire bird sightings at Virtual Birder (www.virtualbirder.com/bmail/nhbirds/latest.html), I discovered that Barred Owls are more plentiful in New Hampshire this winter than in years past and learned this may be due to a crash in the red backed vole population in Canada, which forced the owls to move south for food. Barred Owls typically hunt at night, but under stress, hungry owls will hunt during the day.

Knowing that hunger may have driven this bird to my backyard adds a bittersweet tinge to my owl sighting. Hopefully, the owl will survive the winter here by finding all the voles that plague my garden.

If I stop and think back on this day, my neglected to do list didn’t get any shorter, but my list of memorable moments did get longer.

By Helen Downing, Community Tree Steward

The thermometer this morning read 16.4 degrees F. Time to burrow into the hall closet for the heavy coat, hat, gloves and scarf. It was 7:30 and the birds were hungry. Time to get their feeders out and hung for the day.

The first spring I lived in this area, I didn’t know about bears. The former owner of the house had said something about losing a feeder to bears, but what with unpacking boxes and settling the dogs into their new home, I hadn’t really paid attention.

Outside was a sturdy metal pole, well installed into concrete. On top was a bar with two hooks, perfect for bird feeders. In no time, I had the feeders up and birds had begun visiting.

One morning I looked out and didn’t see the feeders or the pole. What? I dressed swiftly and headed out to the area. The feeders were there on the ground, empty, and the sturdy pole had been pulled down and bent over at an angle of more than 90 degrees. I tried to pull the pole back up but couldn’t get it to budge.

Later that day, I walked over to the neighbor’s house and asked about bears. “Don’t leave your feeder out overnight,” she said. “Bring it in every night from April 1 to December 1.” I decided that was good advice.

Among my stuff I’d packed and moved was an old bird feeder, the kind with a plastic lining and a metal cage to keep out squirrels and large birds. The plastic had long since deteriorated and been thrown out, but the metal cage was perfect for holding dog hair and thread orts. I’d used it before and had always enjoyed watching the birds take the hair and bits of thread for their nests.

After the pole incident, I didn’t dare hang the cage too high, so I looped it over a hook about three feet off the ground. I figured a visiting bear would see what it was and leave it alone. I was wrong. One morning I came out to find the cage on the ground, stomped flat in the middle an obvious expression of disappointment on the bear’s part. I tossed the cage.

I believed I now had an understanding of what to do and not do as far as bears and bird feeders go, but the bears had one more lesson for me. It was October, we’d gone out to dinner and I’d left the feeder out because it was still light. When we got home, it was twilight still bright enough to see into the yard without turning on any lights. Bright enough to see the feeder hanging from its hook except it wasn’t there. In that short time, before full darkness, the bear had come and taken the feeder away with him. It was two years before I found the feeder, down at the edge of the swamp.

One summer night, just as I was getting into bed, the motion detector light came on outside the garage. I quickly made for the window in time to see the rear end of black bear ambling away. I’d seen a bear! It’s one thing to have your feeder stolen by one; it’s quite another to actually see one.

A later visit to the Squam Lake Science Center gave me a very different view of our native black bear. Two captive bears were interacting with one another, standing up to their full height and chasing each other around the fenced area. Seeing live black bears, full grown, teeth bared and claws extended, was a stark reminder of their true power.

They aren’t cuddly overgrown teddy bears, but wild creatures, intent on filling their bellies before the long hibernation, rebuilding their reserves after a long winter’s sleep, and protecting their young from any danger, real or imagined. It isn't wise to encourage them to come too close to our homes or our pets, or to allow them to think of our home grounds as feeding areas.

So now, well before twilight sets in, I bring the feeders into the house every night. I don't even dare leave them on the enclosed porch for fear of the smell enticing a bear to break in. Each morning I don a coat and gloves and carry the feeders back outside, a ritual I don't enjoy.

On this particular morning, I looped three feeders over my arms and walked out to the poles in the frigid air. In the nearby trees, several chickadees warned others of my approach. A nuthatch gave its odd call. I hung the feeders, then walked a few feet away to check on the dogs. When I turned back, the birds were already feasting. I watched for a moment then returned inside. It was time for my breakfast.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

In the beginning, leaving trees for the beavers had been an accidental stroke of luck: my husband cut down trees for firewood and left them by a nearby river. When he returned, he found that beavers had stripped off the branches and leaves. Sensing a good thing, he continued to do this from time to time for mutual benefit.

October 6 - 4:45 p.m.

Phwap! From our vantage point on the riverbank, the slap of the beaver’s tail is loud and startling, and then its owner disappears underwater. Before its dramatic exit, the beaver had swum forcefully back and forth several times, close enough so we could see orange-yellow teeth. Earlier, my husband had caught glimpses of two or three kits swimming about. We assumed the tail-slapping beaver was a female.

It has been several years since the last time beavers worked on this part of the river. It has taken at least a dozen years to replace the poplar (pronounced pop’l in northern Grafton County) and other young hardwoods they use as food and building materials.

October 7 - 7:30 p.m.

Returning the next evening we brought along a flashlight. Soon the plunk of a tail resonates across the water. The flashlight scares the beavers, and they don't come to work on shore. Unfortunately, there's no moon, and we can’t see the beavers without light. Quietly, we leave. We have now seen two large beavers, perhaps the parents of the kits observed during the day. We notice that the maple branches left on the bank have been nibbled and stripped of all bark.

October 8 - 4:30 p.m.

Next day, we return at dusk. It still amazes me to see these creatures working. They have stood a few young trees in the river bottom. I suppose they will nibble away at them as winter approaches. When they swim underwater near them, these saplings begin to sway and shake, telling us of the beavers’ whereabouts underwater. Now one beaver sits upright on a nearby sandbar, nibbling on a branch.

The beavers appear larger out of the water. In the stream, they look svelte and graceful; on land, barrel-shaped and lumbering. They are constantly going back and forth to their home, which is probably a tunnel in the bank. They dive under the dam where we can't see them, so this is just supposition on my part.

We've discovered that if we stand perfectly still they don't notice us. Eventually though, I move too quickly, and phwap! they’re gone.

October 11 - 4:30 p.m.

Walking softly, we stand on the riverbank in daylight looking for beaver activity. An ironwood tree is girdled, a strip of bare bark a sign the beavers had chewed on it as they stood on their hind feet. As we walk silently towards the bank, a head pops out of the water and swims towards the bank we stand upon. No flapping tail this time. The beaver approaches the bank and disappears under brush. Soon, he emerges and swims with a leafy branch back toward his pond.

Suddenly he dives, bringing the branch silently under the water with him. Ripples spread in what we have learned to read as a sign of underwater beavers. No sound, just ripples that circle out further and further on the still, green and black water. A flotilla of bright red and yellow maple leaves has gathered at the edge of the ponded-up area; more leaves flutter on trees nearby. The reflection of leaves and trees lie across the water like objects in a mirror; a stiff gust, and the reflected trunks and branches break apart like a jigsaw puzzle carelessly jarred.

Except for the sound of gently running water and a breeze moaning and sighing through the trees behind us, we hear no other sound, even with both beavers coming and going under the riverbank. We wonder if the branches brought back to the dammed-up area provide food for young kits; we wonder about the importance of young, striped maple saplings standing in the river bottom, with big yellow leaves fluttering like a sailboat’s pennants above water; we wonder why one beaver works to bring branches back and one sits nearby on a sandbar munching small, tender branches. 

As we watch, I move a bit to get a better look at the female as she chips away at her meal of branches and leaves. The next sound we hear is a solid phwap, and under she goes. The rain has started, darkness falls; we call it a day and head home. What a day!

By Helen Downing, Master Gardener

Ever wake up in the middle of the night to the unmistakable scent of skunk wafting through your bedroom windows? Unfortunately, this was a fairly common occurrence for us last summer. We became convinced we had a skunk living under the floorboards of our attached shed.

Unless you live or grew up in an older home, the term "shed" may hold little meaning for you. Sheds came about because our ancestors needed a way to beat the weather. In a shed, you can work, wipe your feet off, and collect all kinds of “stuff.” Sheds can be free-standing outbuildings, but many are connected to a house. Ours is separated from the kitchen by a door, and because of this, what happens in the shed may not stay in the shed, to paraphrase a popular expression.

Once, several years ago at dusk, as I sat reading by a window, I looked out of the corner of my eye and saw a little brown bat unfurl itself from my curtain that hung not more than 10 inches away. The blood-curdling scream that came from my lungs was much larger than the bat’s ability to do me any harm.

We thought the bat probably had been in the shed before accidentally flying into the house when someone opened the shed to kitchen door. Once in, it needed a place to sleep, and the curtain afforded a dark, quiet spot. As twilight approached, s/he was ready to leave, and so did when my husband, who remained calm despite my display of pure adrenalin, did the only logical thing: he opened the kitchen/shed door to allow the bat to leave the same way it had come.

Our adventures with the skunk in the shed were a bit more alarming. One warm Saturday in August when our grandchildren were running about outdoors, my husband came into the house as I cleaned up the aftermath of breakfast.

“I’m going to need your help,” he said.

“What do you want?” I replied, not looking up as I filled the dishwasher, expecting the usual request for assistance with carpentry. I usually serve as the in-house gofer.

“Well, you might want to come look at this,” he whispered.

"O.K., but nothing gross,” I whispered back.

“You be the judge,” he hissed as I followed him out into our shed.

Slowly and carefully, he lifted the lid to our Rubbermaid trash can. As I peered over the edge, I looked into the saddest pair of black eyes I’ve ever seen. A young skunk had apparently fallen into the bottom of our empty trash barrel while exploring our shed area looking for edibles and couldn't climb out. Although the sight of white stripes on black usually signal a need to back off, the look in its eyes spoke to both of us. I felt it was a female who may have had a family somewhere she had to get back to.

What were we to do? The dilemma may not seem so obvious, but if we were to release her back to her natural home, we would have to move her and her current container carefully to not frighten her into her well-known and feared mode of defense. Need I say more?

After we had rounded up the kids and warned them, my husband cooked up a plan: he would tie a long string onto the handle of the barrel, gently carry the barrel out to the edge of the woods not more that 50 feet from our shed, and run like heck back to the designated safe area before pulling on the string. Everyone lined up to view this suspenseful event.

The honor of tugging on the string went to my first-grade granddaughter, Julia, who performed her task perfectly. The bucket now rested on its side, lid off. At first, nothing happened. No movement. No odor, either. Then we caught a glimpse of white stripes on black and the skunk quickly scampered into the cover of a woodland area.

We all cheered. I had my camera out, but due to the uncertainty of the main character's behavior, I took a great picture of the woods right over her head. The real picture was at the human end of the string anyway. The little ones were hopping up and down, so excited at such a sight. The older boys were torn between excitement and trying to appear more sophisticated than their younger siblings.

Would the skunk come out? Would it spray? Stay tuned after this announcement. Isn’t this the tease we hear too often as so-called news is promoted in a hysterical manner? None of that here. This was the CNN of Life: Live! Happening now! What do you do for an encore?

By Helen Downing, Master Gardener

As a homeowner, I had no love for squirrels or chipmunks when it meant the cardinals, robins, titmice and other birds had no seed to eat when they made it to the feeders. In mid August, I downsized into an apartment. An old evergreen tree gives my top floor unit privacy. The tree is as tall as the three story building and has branches touching the deck. Moving in, I noticed a large nest in the tree at eye level and within arms’ reach and was curious to learn what type of bird lived there.

In late August I noticed a squirrel on the deck. He splayed himself out all four paws at right angles to his body and lay there for hours. Quite the social fellow after that, with daily appearances, he wasn’t all that entertaining to watch. It was funny to see him walk from the branch to the deck and splay out, but only funny for so long.  Perhaps the previous owner fed him and he was actually dying of starvation because I wasn’t picking up the slack. Maybe he was sick and was spending his last days in view of someone who would notice his passing. While pondering different scenarios I decided to name him “Stanley.”

After a few days I began amusing myself with one sided conversation.

“Hi, Stanley, another rough day at the office, huh? Climbing that tree has to be grueling.”

I couldn’t tell if his deadpan stare was an indication he didn’t like his name, or if he was less than amused with my wit.

After a couple of chilly early September evenings, I noticed Stanley was actually working on the nest! It hadn’t occurred to me until I actually saw him packing pine needles and evergreen scraps, that it was actually HIS nest. I never knew squirrels lived in tree nests. Chipmunks don’t.

“Stanley, that’s a cool condo you have there!” I loved realizing it was his home.

After a few days of watching him work for hours, I thought maybe he knew something I didn’t about impending cold weather. Doing a little research on the Internet I learned gray squirrels live alone. They only co habit if it’s especially cold and they want to. So why was he insulating his condo now?

After not seeing Stanley for at least three days I wondered if he had run away, had gotten hit by a car, or if he was just sleeping away the much needed rainy weather.

Then there was the day that I walked to the deck in the early morning, as was my routine.  “Are you back yet, Stanley?” Not expecting a response, I was shocked to see a head pop up.

“Stanley! How are you?” It felt like Christmas. I was so excited to see him again. Then a second head popped up.

“Oh! Stanley! Found yourself a girlfriend, huh?” I gave him a side wink.

Then a third head popped up. “Stanley, I’m not even going there with you.” I was turning for my computer to research squirrels having multiple partners, when all three squirrels came running across the tree and onto my deck. My mouth fell open. I watched the activity. Then I started to laugh. One squirrel was larger than the other two.

“No wonder you were so annoyed with your name, Stanley. You’re a girl!”

Stanley was really “Juanita,” a mother in fact. Two days later Juanita and her four babies came onto the deck. The youngsters investigated what they could. A couple tried getting milk from her, but she would grab them and preen them and not let them nurse. Weaning happens between seven and 10 weeks, so they were born in late July, I guessed.

I photographed and watched them for a few hours. The babies were awkward and curious, each with a different personality. I only saw them as a family unit that one particular day.

Since then I’ve seen only one baby return to the deck. He's always amusing himself with his tail, gnawing at the plastic arms of a chair, and placing his paws against the screen to peer into my living room. I’ve named him “Nuthaniel.” I figure Juanita and the other three kids have relocated to different condos. Juanita probably prefers a human who knows male from female.

Regardless, I now have affection for squirrels that I never imagined possible. I can watch Nuthaniel and photograph him without getting bored. Perhaps Nuthaniel is a female. I’ll find out in the spring.

By Lisa J. Jackson, Tree Steward

A pair of white ducks appeared in our neighborhood pond in August. Each time we drove by, we saw them reveling in their element, bottoms up, foraging for food or just swimming around unimpeded in the pond.

It was obvious these weren’t wild ducks, accustomed to the seasonal comings and goings of nature’s cycles. They were domestic ducks, unable to fly or to defend themselves from predators. Still, they survived happily in the pond in late summer.

As fall approached, several of the neighbors joined us in concern for their fate. My grandsons, with their mother, brought food and the ducks welcomed them and even seemed to anticipate the children’s visits complete with handouts. These ducks were used to human beings. No doubt they had been adorable, fluffy ducklings at Easter time. But by the end of summer, the charming babies had grown to full grown ducks, perhaps a bit aggressive and needing accommodations that some suburban family couldn’t provide. Were they then abandoned to fend for themselves, without thought for their ultimate fate? Did parents persuade their children, and perhaps themselves, that the ducks would live happily ever after in our neighborhood pond?

September passed, and then as October moved on, the neighborhood became increasingly concerned. The ducks themselves grew more dependent on the children’s provisions. We all knew if we did nothing these two couldn’t survive once the pond froze over. They would become dinner for someone, if not for Mr. Fox, then for the coyotes or a fisher.

So, one day the children and their mother arrived at our barn with the ducks in the back of the Subaru. The female had been easily captured, but the drake was skittish. The timely arrival of a neighbor saved the day and the pair came to their adopted home in a pen by the barn.

We wondered how they would get on with our ancient Chinese geese noisy creatures but otherwise harmless. A single Indian runner drake shares their pen. (His mate succumbed to a weasel last winter I found her headless carcass in the pen one snowy morning.) What would they think of these new arrivals?

As it turned out, the ducks were welcomed and moved in without incident. They may have missed the freedom of the pond, but they were glad to have food and shelter as winter approached and the cold intensified. Each morning I broke the ice in their water pans, and all drank gratefully.

No sooner had the days begun noticeably to lengthen, in late February or early March, than a white egg appeared in the shelter. Every day, through the spring and early summer, Mrs. Duck produced a single egg. We used them in various ways they are rich and tasty. We saved a half dozen for the nearby Montessori pre school that likes to hatch some chicks or ducks each spring in their incubator. Some of these orphans come back to our farm, either to lay eggs or to find their way to the freezer in the fall.

Sure enough, after 28 days of incubation, the duck eggs hatched, producing four fluffy ducklings. School was over, so home they came to our “nursery.” When they outgrew the small nursery pen, we introduced them to the ducks and geese at the barn. Mrs. Goose decided on motherhood so enthusiastically that she crushed one of them. Another succumbed to her over protective instincts; she was too big and her size overwhelmed them. The others were returned to a safer pen, and after a few weeks we tried again to integrate the little flock of water fowl. This time the Indian Runner drake proved such an ardent lover that the poor ducklings were tattered and thoroughly intimidated by his attentions. So they are back in a safe haven for now, and we shall have roast duck in the fall.

Such a responsibility we assume for our fellow creatures even if we will eventually eat them! And the parent ducks, rescued from the pond, will survive another winter to produce eggs. The children at the Montessori school can again experience the miracle of tiny ducklings emerging from their shells. We’ll make egg salad of the rest.

By Carolyn Baldwin, Community Tree Steward

We're not official bird watchers. “Wildlife appreciation generalists” fits us more accurately. We enjoy seeing all kinds of wildlife around us.

When my husband and I started developing our nine acres of abandoned hayfield into a Christmas tree farm, we intentionally left one side of the property in open field “weeds” to some people. We only cut that section once a year to keep the forest at bay. Mowing takes place after the bobolinks have gone on their way and after the monarchs have finished with the milkweed. Bobolinks like to build their nests in fields, but their appearances here have been sporadic. Wild turkeys are continual visitors, using the tall grass for cover if threatened.

Our driveway edges the field for a few hundred feet. It’s so enjoyable to see a monarch flitting among the milkweed plants while walking to get the newspaper and mail. There used to be a gazillion monarchs, but this year I was excited to see one. The winter temperatures haven’t been very kind to them as they migrate between here and warmer climes. The weather hasn’t deterred some other kinds of butterflies, though. Dozens of orangey ones, and also bees and hummingbirds, love the Echinacea and other perennials in the yard.

One of the best things we’ve done for ourselves and the wildlife has been to put in a small recirculating pond in our front yard. Almost before it was finished, the frogs moved in. How did they know that water was suddenly going to appear? We spend the warm summer evenings sitting at the shaded edge of this water feature watching the birds, fish and frogs. The birds are getting more and more used to us being there and will hop into the little stream and bathe with reckless abandon while we wish we could be so uninhibited. The frogs climb onto the lily pads and dream froggy thoughts.

Once while we were sitting there, a very large frog tried to swallow a very large bird. The bird was dead, having been swallowed head first, but its wings were spread wide. It was hard to tell, but I think it was an immature robin. We watched this spectacle for a long time. The grandchildren were entranced. Cell phone pictures were taken to prove this occurrence. Finally, after the frog had tried everything including wetting the feathers, it still couldn't finish swallowing this huge mass. He gave up.

The water has drawn more species of birds than we’ve ever seen here before. Some cute little brown bird was out there tonight. Last week we saw a lovely yellow bird that wasn't the usual goldfinch. A yellow warbler? The cedar waxwings have been staying around. Usually, they were only here for the mountain ash berries, but they found and really like the blueberry bushes we planted for ourselves (originally). The waxwings have to share the berry bushes and our fruit trees with the fat robins. We have never harvested a cherry!

This brings up chipmunks. Cute, but a friend dubbed them “woods rats,” which kind of fits. They gather food right along with the birds, running back and forth with their little cheeks stuffed full of fruit. I have found some of their treasures hidden in the soft soil of my garden.

Aside from letting the field go wild, we have been landscaping the yard with flowers and bushes known as good food and cover sources for birds and other wildlife. Each year I buy way too many plants from the Strafford County Conservation District plant sale. They do an excellent job of choosing native plants that are particularly interesting to wildlife. Some of the bare little sticks I bought a few years ago are now 12 feet high and their fruits last all through the winter. I planted nannyberry and buttonbush species I hadn’t heard of before along with winterberry, bayberry and hollies.

The birds love to nest in our fir, spruce and pine trees. The branches are so lush they provide excellent cover for the young. At mid-winter tree harvest time, the families get so excited to find a bird's nest in their Christmas tree. Thankfully, folklore claims that this means good luck.

The latest trend seems to be to reduce your carbon footprint (a measure of the impact your activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of green house gases you produce). One of the ways being touted is letting part of the lawn go natural, saving on gas and oil for the mowers.

It's nice to know that we're ahead of the curve for a change. We find a peaceful calm at the end of the day getting in tune with the wildlife using the habitat we've created.

By Carolyn Enz Page, Community Tree Steward

A strange occurrence took place in my yard one day. While loading the dishwasher, I looked out the window and noticed two gray squirrels chasing each other around a tree. There was nothing unusual about their activity, but I was struck by what seemed to be patches of blood on their backs and wondered if they’d been in some kind of fight, perhaps inflicting mutual wounds.

Still, it seemed odd that they would have identical injuries and, to add to the mystery, neither looked as though it was suffering at all. I continued to watch as they raced through the yard, up one tree and down another.

A few days later I saw the pair again - bloodied, but moving as if nothing were wrong. My next-door neighbor called to ask if I had seen them.

“I’m looking at them right now,” I said. “I am too,” she replied.

“You mean you can see through the woods into my yard?” I gasped, thinking of all the times I’d darted half-naked into my driveway to get the morning paper. “No, they’re sitting on the stone wall, right outside my living room window.”

The feeling of relief that came when I realized she couldn’t see my property from her house was immediately replaced by the realization that, if she were looking at two bloody squirrels and I was looking at two bloody squirrels, there were four bloody squirrels running around McCoy Road. We decided to call the local vet to see if perhaps it was a disease, not an injury, which caused the discoloration. The vet was as baffled as we.

The answer to our puzzle came a few weeks later at our annual Fourth of July neighborhood tea when one of the elderly ladies described her new method of dealing with the squirrels that constantly raided her bird feeder.

“I capture them in a Havahart trap and then Fran takes them down the road and releases them at the pond.” she told us, adding proudly, “But first, I spray a spot of red paint on their backs so I’ll know if they return.”

A unanimous smile spread across our faces as an epiphany took hold. So that’s where the red splotches had come from nothing so complicated as squirrel gang-wars or bizarre diseases, just a sweet old lady with a can of red spray paint, trying to protect her bird feeders.

The pond where Fran set the squirrels free was a mere 150 yards from their house - nowhere near far enough to prevent the squirrels from returning. That would require taking them at least five miles away. But there are many reasons why you shouldn’t try to relocate any animals you have on your property:

• Relocating squirrels and other animals is usually unsuccessful and, more often than not, fatal to the animal. Once moved to a new environment, an animal is without family, regular food sources, and their familiar shelter, leaving them vulnerable to predators as well as starvation.
• When you move a squirrel you may be spreading disease or taking a mother away from her babies, who will certainly die without her.
• The introduction of a new squirrel to an area causes a disruption to the existing squirrels that perceive their new neighbor as a threat to their survival.
• The trip alone may be traumatic enough to cause death. (My four-year-old daughter wasn’t far from the truth when she referred to them as “Have-a-heart-attack” traps.)

In many states, it’s illegal to relocate wild animals. Plus, it’s simply not effective: eventually, the void left on your property by removing one squirrel will almost certainly be filled by another.

So what can you do to cope with these pesky rodents? To prevent them from getting into your house, perform annual inspections to find and block any holes or crevices they might enter. Attic vents, soffits and chimneys are popular entry points—especially for female squirrels, who have two litters a year and are always looking for a warm place to have their babies.

As for keeping squirrels out of bird feeders, wildlife biologist Marsha Barden of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services unit in Concord recommends removing bird feeders entirely in the spring and summer, “for the sake of many species, including the birds themselves that feed in crowded conditions, may pass diseases, and lose some wariness and foraging skills. We strongly suggest using dust baths, water attractants and natural plantings, rather than feeders, to attract birds in spring and summer.”

Barden adds another note of concern: “Marking animals, as with paint, should never be done frivolously. Even when wildlife biologists capture and release animals for a legitimate purpose, there is concern that any kind of marking, whether it be by putting in an ear tag or even clipping a toenail, could adversely affect the survival of the animal.”

Bottom line: think of your job as working for ADT home security systems, not Mayflower van lines.  Both you and the squirrels will be happier with the results.

By Susan Ferber, Master Gardener

The sharp, raspy call introduced a certain harshness into the otherwise peaceful solitude of an early November afternoon. I had been enjoying the stillness as I sat on my patio, neatly tucked into the space where the floor of the sun porch met the rear wall of my Cape Cod-style home.

The call came again…chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dee. I directed my eyes to the arbor on my left and looked up into the yellowing leaves clinging to the hardy-kiwi vine. There on the vine, perched in a defiant stance better suited for a larger, more intimidating bird, the black-capped chickadee once more sounded the call, which seemed directed solely toward me and which seemed to be chastising me for having failed to perform some duty.

Just behind the chickadee hung the brown, metal bird feeder. “It’s empty,” I thought. “I put out the last load of black-oil sunflower seed before the end of March.” Could this bird be one of those who spent a good part of the past winter feeding here? If so, he (or she) must remember and realize that I am the person responsible for filling it.”

I scanned the area for other chickadees, thinking perhaps that this one was calling to family members, rather than actually trying to influence me. But he was alone and none of his species, or any other species, responded to the call.

“Very curious,” I thought. “I’ll have to remember to pick up some more seed.”

Days went by. I completed several shopping trips without remembering to pick up food for my avian neighbors. But the chickadee, being considerably younger and hungrier than I, persisted.

A week later, we replayed the scene on the patio. I sat and he complained. Of course, I assumed it was the same individual bird, though it could have been another. To me, chickadees look and sound alike, and their quickness and smallness make it difficult to spot any unique characteristics. However, the message was clear: if I didn’t refill the feeder soon, there would be consequences.

In all seriousness, I didn’t fear the wrath of a lone chickadee. It was more compassion than fear that motivated me to respond to the threat. Besides, the black-capped chickadee is such a loveable creature. Most New Englanders admire these creatures for their daring, precision and crowd-pleasing antics.

Necessity found me at the store the next day, and the bird-badgering had occurred recently enough to joggle a few brain cells into recalling the need for sunflower seeds. I managed to get the 25-lb sack into the car and back to the house where the empty bird feeder hung. The seed, being bulky and not immediately necessary, sat on the passenger-side of the front seat for a couple more days. Then, once again I was reminded by the tiny-but-vocal bird, with a black patch appearing like a perfectly-aligned toupee, that it was time to act.

It was dusk before I found it convenient to fill the feeder. The following afternoon, I glanced out the window in the kitchen and noticed a significant amount of avian activity at the feeder. The chickadees would flit in, grab a seed and retreat to the kiwi vine. The finches tended to secure the perch and remain on the feeder, selecting seed, until forced off by more aggressive individuals.

I wondered how the word spread so quickly that there was now food at the site. Who discovered it, and how was the discovery communicated to the others?

Later, I assumed my customary post near the feeder on my patio chair to catch the fleeting warmth of late afternoon sun. I’d put on thick socks under my open-toed sandals to protect against the cool cement surface of the patio slab. I crossed my legs with the right ankle resting on my left knee, admired what remained of the autumn foliage, and contemplated the stack of cordwood in the yard.

My reverie was disturbed suddenly by a flutter of tiny wings as a lone chickadee dropped from my roof and flew directly toward me. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him approach and land directly on the tip of my large toe. He perched there for several seconds, seemingly aware that I was alive and not a mere statue.

At first, I felt pleased to share this moment with such a loveable creature, sure that he was honoring me for having supplied the life-sustaining seed. Then suddenly, it became clear to me that my status as master over the lowly chickadee was being called into question.

Could that look in his steely, dark eye convey more than simple appreciation for my kindness? Perhaps the chickadee meant to deliver a warning that future neglect might result in punishment—a sharp peck on my toe, for instance.

This episode will give me something to ponder as I dutifully fill the feeder during the frigid winter days ahead.

Robert Powell Hughes, UNH Cooperative Extension Community Marine Docent

Fishing poles in hand, my brother and I startled as the chunky, dark bird flew from beneath the black spruce forest. “Mark, it’s a spruce grouse!” I said, awestruck by the beauty of the rare cousin of the ruffed grouse, a popular game bird. “That’s the first one I’ve ever seen.”

When we entered the woods on a brook trout fishing expedition in the summer of 2001, that part of the forest hadn’t yet been conserved as the Connecticut Lakes Wildlife Management Area, nor had anyone conceived the notion of an action plan to protect the state’s wildlife. Looking back on that fishing trip, I realize how far we’ve come since then toward protecting many of the wildlife and habitats that are important to me and to the ecological and economic well-being of our state.

Two years ago I was asked to co-coordinate a New Hampshire Fish and Game Department team that would create the New Hampshire Wildlife Action Plan. On the way to developing that plan, our team created a list of wildlife species and habitats in need of conservation attention—some of which I’m sure many of you have enjoyed over the years: eastern brook trout, wood turtle, purple finch, American woodcock, mink frog, and bobcat, to name a few.

While the federal government mandated and funded this mammoth project nationwide, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department made our Wildlife Action Plan truly New Hampshire-specific. Biologists scoured the records to make sure we knew as much as possible about where our critters live so we would start with the best available information.

Then Fish and Game contracted with experts from many conservation organizations and agencies to help write specific profiles on our wildlife species and key habitats. More than natural history, these profiles contained an assessment of the risks to the species and habitats, and listed actions that could help ensure the long-term viability of each one. They presented assessments of the current condition of New Hampshire’s wildlife habitat as a baseline against which we will measure our progress over time.

Our team pulled together all the species and habitat profiles and looked for continually reoccurring risk factors. Biologists then wrote descriptions of these most prominent risk factors followed by conservation strategies that would help New Hampshire reduce those risks, thereby improving conditions for wildlife.

While the writing was hard enough, getting the job done will be much harder. The Fish and Game Department recognizes that, and put forth an implementation plan that includes descriptions of the next steps to take, emphasizing the importance of the work of individuals, communities, regional planners, conservation groups, state and federal agencies, and many others.

The bottom line? Fish and Game can’t do it alone. They are counting on many partners to come together with the common cause of keeping New Hampshire beautiful and ecologically sound. Wildlife is truly a public resource and each of us has a stake in ensuring its long-term protection.

I hope someday to take my three sons on that same fishing trip to the Connecticut Lakes Wildlife Management Area, where perhaps they will have the same awe-inspiring experience of seeing a rare spruce grouse, and perhaps even catching an eastern brook trout or two.

Click here to view the New Hampshire Wildlife Action Plan on the Web.

By Darrel Covell, UNH Cooperative Extension Wildlife Extension Specialist

The cat, Miss Jane, knows about flying squirrels. She eats some of those that winter in the wall of the house. My closest encounter occurred when I was proposing to clean out what I had thought of as a bird house. Nose-to nose-with an equally startled squirrel, I changed my assumption of occupancy and my plan. Miss Jane knows intimately certain aspects of squirrel behavior and physiology, but I’ve begun reading.

I’ve learned that flying squirrels are extremely common, though we seldom see them due to their position on the night shift of squirreldom. There may be two species of flying squirrels here in Bradford. Northern flying squirrels prefer the conifers and southern flying squirrels take the mixed deciduous. Although similar in appearance, their habits vary somewhat.

A brief column doesn’t provide nearly enough space to describe the flying squirrels’ large, night-vision eyes which, like the eyes of all rodents, are set far apart for a broad field of vision. This gives the squirrels a better chance of evading the owls and Miss Jane, but poor depth perception. Appearing wracked by indecision, they bob and weave nervously before leaping. In fact, they are triangulating, trying to get multiple visual angles on the proposed landing site. I regret not having enough space to describe why their eyes shine orange at night.

A single column offers barely enough space to include these facts about flying squirrels: They have very long whiskers, charmingly called “vibrissae.” They carefully notch an acorn to fit their small mouths before carrying it aloft to a cache hole in a tree, there to pound it in place with their incisors, producing a sound that might carry fifty feet. They roll their babies into balls to transport them from nest to nest, which they do frequently. They have a large vocal repertoire. Our northern flying squirrels grow fur on the soles of their feet in winter. Less territorial than other rodents, they aggregate in numbers in house rafters and hollow trees in winter for communal warmth and Olympic games.

All squirrels are fairly adept at falling out of trees unharmed. The principle is simple—stick your arms, legs and tail out to provide as much surface area and control as possible then hope for the best. Flying squirrels have taken this elementary parachuting a good bit further and possess a singularly wonderful body part known as a pataguim. This is the furry vestment that drapes from wrist to ankle on each side of the flying squirrel’s body.

No mere flap of extra skin, the pataguim contains a complex arrangement of muscles. Thin, flat muscles lie within the gliding skin and serve to control the direction of flight. Ropelike muscles along the outer edge hold the air foil taut. Additional muscles help stabilize the outstretched legs. They don’t “flap their wings.” Yet another set of muscles holds the pataguim close to the squirrel’s side so as not to impede them when they scamper afoot.

An added feature is a cartilaginous rod that extends from the wrist in flight to further open the leading edge of the gliding surface. At rest, the rod lies flat along the forearm. Imagine a stiletto knife that appears at the touch of a cufflink in some dreadful movie.

With all this specialized equipment in place, a flying squirrel glides silently through the night woods, spiraling down or making right angle turns as necessary. The initial powerful leap is usually followed by a short, step dive to gain velocity for glides of 20-60 feet on average. Glides of 150 feet are not unheard of, and down-slope distances of 300 feet have been recorded.

A flying squirrel may pancake to the ground to forage on nuts, seeds, and insects, or abruptly swoop upwards at the end of a glide to land on another tree. Its patagium billows to reduce speed, its tail wings upwards, its landing gear thrusts forward. After scaling this tree, it may leap again, speeding through the night forest.

One final note: a mother flying squirrel lies balanced on forehead and feet over her blind, naked offspring and spreads her furry pataguim like a blanket to keep them warm. Sounds delightful on a 10-below night.

By J. Ann Eldridge, UNH Cooperative Extension Wildlife Coverts Cooperator

As soon as the first few inches of snow falls, some New Hampshire landowners begin thinking about putting out food for the deer.

Don’t! You’ll do more harm than good, both to the deer and to their habitat. Research and experience have shown that the negative effects of winter feeding outweigh any benefit deer might get from being fed.

Two factors primarily determine deer survival during winter: the availability of high-quality food in the fall, and softwood (e.g., hemlock, spruce, fir) cover during winter.

Deer must store body fat for the winter. The amount of body fat a deer has when it enters the winter directly determines if it will survive until spring. Deer accumulate body fat by increasing the amount of food they eat in September and October, when high-quality foods, such as acorns and beech nuts, are abundant. By November, most deer have accumulated all the fat they will need to survive the winter.

During September and October feeding, fat accumulation in adult deer results in a 20 to 30 percent increase in body weight. Fawns, on the other hand, accumulate only about half as much fat, because they use most of the food they eat for growing muscles and bones.

Beginning in November, deer in the Northeast voluntarily begin eating less. They continue to reduce the amount of food they eat each day until around late February, when they are eating about 50 percent less food per day than they did in September. Throughout the winter, deer compensate for their reduced food intake by relying on their stored fat for energy. An adult deer may get as much as 40 percent of its daily nutrition during winter from fat reserves.

However, to maintain this level of stored fat use, deer must conserve their energy by reducing their activity (e.g., by traveling less) and by spending most of their time in softwood cover, where it’s warmer and the snow isn’t as deep. These energy-conserving behaviors are especially important for fawns because of their lower fat reserves.

Although deer can eat to reduce the amount of fat they burn, natural foods only slow the rate of fat loss; they don’t stop it. This is where some people begin saying, “That’s why people need to put out grain for the deer!”

But research has discovered that even deer feeding on nothing but grain lose weight during the winter. Even captive deer that have access to as much high-quality food as they want still reduce the amount of food they eat beginning in November, and they continue to lose body fat through February.

That’s because deer have evolved a survival strategy that involves eating as much food as they can in autumn, to put on as much fat as possible before winter. Once winter comes, instinct tells deer to eat less, move around less, and seek the protection of winter cover.

Research also shows that large, dominant adult deer fill their bellies first at feeding sites, which means that smaller and weaker individuals, including the vulnerable fawns, will have wasted valuable energy traveling to the feeding site, where they may get little feed. Over time, feeding sites attract more and more deer competing for the same food supplies, leading to over-browsing and degradation of the natural habitat around a feeding site, as well as wreaking havoc on homeowners’ ornamental plantings.

Wildlife biologists also worry that deer feeding might help spread Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), which affects deer and elk and is always fatal. To date, CWD has been found in 14 states, including New York, although it hasn’t been found in New Hampshire.

Although biologists don’t know exactly how this disease spreads, they believe its transmission requires close contact between animals. When humans put out food for deer, they create a situation where an unnaturally high number of deer become concentrated in a small area.

In fact, some states have banned winter feeding of deer to help stop the spread of CWD. Feeding deer because you just like to watch them is a selfish reason for placing our deer resource at so much risk.
 
So, what can you do if you want to help deer during the winter? You can work on your property and with your neighbors to create and maintain quality deer habitat. This includes working in stands of oak and beech to increase the amount of nuts available in autumn, working in softwood stands to maintain and create dense winter cover, and working in hardwood stands to increase the amount of woody browse available to deer. Together, landowners, hunters, and wildlife enthusiasts can ensure there will be enough habitats to sustain many generations of deer in New Hampshire.

By Matt Tarr, Educator, UNH Cooperative Extension Forest Resources

For more information call the UNH Cooperative Extension's Family, Home & Garden Center's Info-line (toll free) at 1-877-398-4769 or send us an email. Volunteers are available to answer your questions Monday through Friday 9:00am to 2:00 p.m.

An exuberant weasel lives under my garden shed. I saw it first in winter. Sleek and glistening, with creamy white fur and a black nose, eyes and tail tip, it scampered from the garden shed to disappear under a planter. It was dressed for winter as an ermine, the creature whose short tail once edged the robes of European nobility. It came back in summer, drenched with rain, dressed in trench-coat taupe.

The bobcat who lives on the ledge above us chases away feral cats. This occurs at midnight and sounds like a shrieking catfight in an alley between tall brick buildings. The sight of long striped cat legs on the front deck is startling.

Our road wanders through hill, ledge, and wetland, probably tracing the same path the colonists walked and the magnificent Concord stagecoaches traversed a century later. Coyotes and a black bear with two cubs live across the road, a named and numbered state highway. In the beaver bogs, moose and great blue heron feed. The wild turkeys usually fly across the road in the winter, but, in the summer, the two toms stand on the berm with the harem behind them, and wait for cars to stop. Those of us who live here do.

My urban colleagues at work enjoy reminding me that I live in the "Nature Conservancy," which encompasses the wetland at the bottom of the hill. Before we became politically and environmentally aware, we called them "swamps"- breeding grounds for mosquitoes, black flies and such, and thus to be shunned, or worse, drained or backfilled. Now, we're grateful that the wetland filters and purifies the water table and shelters the dragonflies, frogs, salamanders and other wild life.

The acorn and beech mast harvest was light last fall, so I saw four red squirrels in the bird feeders. I have a friend who criticizes my winter bird feeding as environmentally undesirable. As a gardener, my defense is that the chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, and turkeys feed their babies insects in the summer, so I want them to live here year round and diminish the bad bugs in my garden. Yet even I doubt that chickadees distinguish between the beneficial garden bugs and the destructive ones.

Who knows what the deer on the hill ate last winter. They often go for my hostas and azaleas. I don't intentionally feed deer, and the landscape plants I chose came mostly from the lists of last resorts for deer, but I lean toward native plants as first choices, and when deer are starving, they eat everything and anything. The local deeryard is on my land, an accident of topography, so deer will be here when the temperatures drop and the wind howls. That same hemlock ravine that shelters the deer hosts the precious red-breasted nuthatches I adore. I encourage local hunters who prefer venison and practice rifle and archery safety.

Chickadees are so socially charming and entertaining when I'm out pruning, shoveling snow, or cutting dinner table flowers. The beat of their wings whistles. The puff of air in my face displaced by those wing beats still amazes me with its force. The chickadees eat some hollyhock seeds among the millions in the garden. I can share with chickadees and nuthatches, but not deer, red squirrels or woodchucks. I wonder what that says about my character.

The last woodchuck to move here dug a burrow under a lilac tree. Every morning, he stood on his hind legs and scratched his back on the corner of the garden shed, just like the meerkats in the "Lion King" or the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

His fourth day out, the woodchuck ate all the lilies in the garden. When the gas can tipped over during a groundhog exercise session in the shed, my husband cleaned and loaded his rifle. He claimed he hit the woodchuck, but we never found or smelled the carcass, so maybe it just moved elsewhere. Maybe the bobcat prevailed. I forgot to fill in the hole with rocks and soil come fall, and the next spring, half the lilac tree failed to leaf out. I'm fairly certain the weasel lives there now.

The mice are gone from the potting shed. A few clay pots are scattered and broken. Whether the hole in the spilled bag of perlite came from the mouse, the scampering weasel, or both, perlite is easy to sweep. The potting soil no longer sprouts sunflowers from mouse seed caches. The lilac tree recovered when pruned. I'm hoping for another glance at the ermine.

By Cheryl Grabe, UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardener

When I installed a water garden in my backyard, I was expecting the presence of water to attract various forms of wildlife. I designed the pool with straight sides to keep raccoons from eating the snails and fish I planned to add. I constructed a waterfall with eddy pools of the optimum depth for the bathing birds I wanted to attract by the splashing of the falling water.

Frogs and dragonflies would find their way to the water with no help from me, though I dreaded the arrival of turtles, having read about the havoc turtles could wreak on waterlilies.

Once I finished constructing the pool, I anxiously awaited the arrival of wild visitors, especially the frogs. I started counting the frogs daily, inspecting the size and color of each new arrival, reporting the results of my observations to my mother in the mornings and to my husband at the end of each day. I became a miser, gleefully gloating over my wealth of frogs, fish and dragonflies.

An unexpected wild visitor appeared in my pool one Sunday morning. I was working on the patio adjacent to the pool, enjoying the sound of splashing water in the background, when suddenly the splashing stopped. I had visions of a clogged pump or thrown circuit breaker to explain the lack of water, but, as I studied the waterfall, I realized there was no mechanical problem.

Lying in a sensuous curve across the lip of the fall was a lovely brown garden snake. Its sleek body was acting as a dam, its narrow head spilling over the waterfall’s edge as it enjoyed the view. No one would believe this! I ran inside to get a camera, but when I returned to the pool, the snake had abandoned the area. Or so I thought.

Going back to work on the patio, I looked up from time to time, hoping to spy the snake returning for a photo-op. After a few minutes I noticed one of my frogs emerging from a small cavern beside the waterfall. This frog came out of the cavern very slowly, as though he had weights tied to each foot. First the head, then the right front foot, a few moments later, the left front foot. I waited for the rest of the frog to appear, but when it didn't, I went in for a closer look.

As I neared the frog, he seemed totally oblivious to my approach, and I realized that every muscle in his body was straining to pull his hind legs out of the hole. I reached down and gave him a tug. He didn't budge. The snake had him by a hind leg. I could just make out the edge of the snake's mouth in the shadows of the cave.

This was ridiculous! The frog was ten times the width of the snake's mouth; no way was this snake going to be able to swallow that frog.

I picked up a twig and tickled the snake's nose. The frog continued straining to escape. I tickled the snake some more. Finally it opened its mouth and the frog erupted as though shot from a cannon—out of the snake, out of the cave, and into the water. He appeared none the worse for his ordeal and settled down into the grasses growing on the bottom of the pool, out of harm's way.

The snake wasn't ready to call it a day, though. It slithered out of the cavern and onto the water. Six inches, eight inches, one foot of snake suspended on the surface of the pool, and still its tail was not in sight. It rested its head on a floating plant and waited for another chance at a meal

I felt guilty for disrupting the course of nature, and went back to work on the patio. When next I looked, my unexpected visitor had gone.

You may have noticed the advent of winter in more than just a change in ambient temperature. There are fewer leaves, fewer bugs, and fewer birds. The surfaces we tread upon outdoors change in texture and normally turn a lighter color. Indeed, most of us get paler, too, and heavier, encumbered with thicker trappings.

Many other animals also put on heavier coats. A few actually pale all the way to white. I regret we don’t live with arctic foxes, tundra hares or the willow ptarmigan. But we do cohabit with snowshoe hares, ermines and long-tailed weasels. These three also completely change their seasonal garb from shades of brown and gray to snow white and then back again in spring.

It doesn’t take much effort to imagine the advantages of this seasonal fashion change. Ermines, also called short-tailed weasels, and the somewhat larger long-tailed weasels hunt small animals over and under the snow cover. There is a huge benefit in being difficult for your targeted dinner to see you coming and take evasive action. Although mice, voles and shrews might have benefited from adopting similar strategies, their high reproductive rates are adequate for the continued survival of their species.

Another advantage to the weasels’ winter camouflage: weasels themselves are sought by owls, hawks, fishers, foxes, coyotes and bobcats.  Tips of the tails of both of our local weasels remain black both summer and winter. Biologists have a plausible explanation for this seeming paradox: predators are apt to fixate on the more expendable bobbing tail, a far safer target from the weasel’s point of view.

Mink, another smallish member of the Mustelide family, remain chestnut-colored year round. They hunt along and in dark waters for their meals, and a change to a lighter color would prove disastrous for them.

Weasel predators and the weasels themselves all hunt the snowshoe hare. Also known as the varying hare, the snowshoe hare is the only wild Lagamorph we are likely to see in the central and northern parts of New Hampshire. The best strategy for the hare is to remain motionless and hopefully unseen. Unlike the weasels, the snowshoe hare changes only the color of its guard hairs, the longest, coarsest hairs that make up its outer coat. In September or October these start to grow in pure white, obscuring the darker underfur.

Biologists suggest the color white exchanges less heat with the surrounding environment, meaning that although a white coat absorbs less heat from the sun, it also allows less body heat to escape.

For snowshoe hares, the autumn molt starts on the ears, feet, and legs, and ends on the back. In March, the spring molt starts on the forehead, muzzle, and body and finishes with the ears and feet. The mottled effect usually coincides with the mottled effect of patchy snowmelt. Weasels also have definite molt patterns, which follow approximately the same schedule as the hares.
Temperature change isn’t the major factor stimulating color change. Shedding is triggered by day length. The reduced intensity of light entering through an animal’s eyes as the days shorten signals the pituitary gland in the brain to start the fall molt. This gland also regulates the release of pigment to cells in the hair follicles, resulting in a color change. As the days lengthen again, the spring molt reverses the color scheme. Long-tailed weasels and snowshoe hares don’t change color in the snowless parts of their ranges.

Though some of us may yearn for early melts or even snow-free winters, some of the other residents prefer and may even require snowy winter seasons. I wonder how they are faring this year.

By J. Ann Eldridge, Wildlife Coverts Cooperator

2/01/07