New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff
Sweating out the summer season at last.
Friday 07/15/2005
What a difference a little sunshine and summer heat is making to practically fling the corn stalks out of the ground nearby. I took a walk with my dogs this morning and stepped into one of the local corn fields. Some of the corn is waste high. However in my travel yesterday evening to give my annual lecture at the Loon Preservation Center in Moultonboro I noticed that much of the corn, that I would guess is sweet corn, is stunted. The stalks are only a couple of feet tall and are already tasseled-up and therefore are about to form cobs. My guess is they will be very stunted and worthless. What a blow to the local farmer there.
The Suncook River out my window this morning still runs coffee brown and at a low flood stage pace. It continues to look more like April waters. But not the view! The lush growing season has shot the tree branches out from both sides of the river near and far leaving me a view of just half of the river as I bend to glance out my home office window. Such is the case of the Merrimack River and all the other rivers I have been watching this summer. They are all plump with water and stained earthen colors.
My son Adam was home for a couple of days this week from his career in the Secret Service in D.C. We did manage a few ours of fishing. A little in a nearby lake after I got off work Tuesday afternoon, then the whole day Wednesday in Portsmouth. Familiar waters to him since he served with the state's Marine Patrol there for three years starting his second year in collage. Even the Piscataqua River ran very colored for this time of year. A steady wind from the south kept us cool in the day that went into the 80's, but the chop kept us in my little 15 foot boat in the river for the day. Still we did manage to find some fish. Adam landed and released a big fat striper over 35 inches long as well as some smaller ones. I managed to have a blue strip my rod of bait and hook while drifting some cut bait. It was a great day to get in, with him only home for such a short time.
Yesterday I spent the day checking for sites to survey mast trees ( those that produce nuts) in preparation for an annual regional survey that will start this fall. Forester Inge Seaboyer from the Department of Forests and Lands was my guide. She has done most of the forest inventories on state lands in this region of New Hampshire and has them well documented on maps of each state forest, park and Fish and Game land. I have been requested to find three sites each for red oak, white oak and beech where I can go each fall to assess nut production. Of coarse Bear Brook State Park was my starting point and Inge lead me into a great stand of beech and some white oak patches. Unfortunately southeast New Hampshire is on the southern end of the beech range and the northern end of the white oak range. Still we covered some ground by vehicle, including plenty of kidney jarring 4-wheel time, and some nice hikes into the deep forests. I am still amazed at the human traffic in the relatively remote parts left in this corner of the state. After all Bear Brook has 10,000 acres to roam. But the mountain bike tracks are everywhere. And this year they have been especially tough on the trails because of all the rain. Many trails are rock and boulder strewn from the erosion of the top soil by human use. What a difference a decade or so has made. I tracked a radio collared yearling female bear I had released in there Park in the mid to late 1980's. I was practically the only one on the trails that summer. And they were in great shape. Not so any more.
The air is very still and devoid of sounds this morning as the thermometer heads into the 80's again. No birds, or even a breeze to tickle a sound from the trees. The summer doldrums are upon us.
