New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff
How much wood can a woodchuck chuck?
Wednesday 08/17/2005
Today I was surveying nuts. That's right nuts, as in acorns and beech nuts. Fortunately I had the very able guidance of a state professional forester Inge Seaboyer. We spent all morning locating individual beech and red oak trees in stands in Bear Brook State Park. Each Fish and Game Regional biologist has been directed to locate typical red and white oak, and beech stands in their region to begin and annual survey for "hard mast" which in NH would be acorns and beech nuts.
NH will be one of 8 states conducting the annual survey. States from West Virginia to Maine are participating. We have conducted an annual subjective survey of both hard mast (nuts) and soft mast (berries) for several years. Bear biologist Andy Timmins has run this annual survey in New Hampshire for several years. I have also conducted one using the state's 400 trappers. Licensed trappers are required to provide information on the species they trap and as the fur bearer biologist I have included a voluntary " wildlife and wild food" survey for over 20 years. Again my survey is subjective asking the trappers weather animals from mice and squirrels to lynx and bobcats were evident in their area the pervious year. I also have included hard and soft mast as well as cone production.
Food abundance is a significant, but little understood, part of the abundance of most wildlife survival. This new survey is more non subjective since individual trees are number and survey year to year based on a 30 second observation of the crown through binoculars. I spent a good part of my day scanning the tree tops. Luckily Inge has a great memory as she did the forest inventory of Bear Brook back in the late 1980's. Not only did she know where to find the stands of beech red and white oak, but as an experienced forester she could judge weather the tree was healthy and therefore could be relied on for many years of observations. Never-the-less I was pretty well beat into the ground after a long day in the woods tripping and stumbling a lot, as my eyes were mostly looking up. The red oaks were loaded with acorns. The beech was few as expected down here, and the white oaks had few as well.
I did manage another trip to my camp in Maine over the week end. It was even miserably hot up there Saturday night. Very unusual because it is so near the sea. One of my most memorable moments was when I was out fishing by my favorite place "Grass Island". At one point I had a loon within casting distance and at that very moments an adult bald eagle chose to fly low directly over me. I could easily hear the steady pumps of its wings as it paddled across the azure blue cloudless sky. In fact when I arrived Friday evening and had a chance to get the chairs out on the deck and settle in for a look around, an eagle was in plain view by the Point easily visible with the naked eye. I did catch and release a couple of good sized pickerel. They are one of my favorite fish to catch. I had a huge one lunge for my lure just as I was about to lift it out of the water. It was a monster. But I managed to yank my lure away in time!
I also spent some time on the Suncook River Tuesday evening. It was so peaceful and tranquil to be on the water just before dark and then in the dark in a kayak as the nearly full moon rose into the sky to the East. It was nearly midnight before I could pull myself away from the grasp of the waters influence.
