New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff
The St. Patty's deer yard check.
Thursday 03/17/2005
Old man winter has tested me this year and today even forced me to strap on my snowshoes to do a winter deer yard check. I usually wait until near the end of winter as it is the accumulation of winter deer yard use that is of most value when we submit reports to our deer biologist Kent Gustafson.
I spent the morning at HQ in Concord but managed to have some spare time by mid afternoon to strap on the shoes for about an hour and a half cruise of a local deer yard I have intermittently checked for close to two decades. In fact part of the yard is on a town's conservation land that I helped finagle during the LCIP state funded land protection in the early 90's.
Since then over a dozen houses have built-out the proposed development that enabled the conservation deal. I started into the woods with my snowshoes in hand, but didn't get very far before donning them. Deer had ventured right up to the houses from the 10 acre or so hemlock stand I was entering. Any stand of hemlocks with overhead branches touching is typically a deer yard in this part of the state. This one pitches down a slope from the development to a lovely deeply shaded brook.
I only found 5 deer beds and my hour and a half wandering suggested that was all the deer wintering there right now. This is less than half the number I found here a decade ago or so. Until the last couple of significant snow storms I don't think the deer were yarded at all in this part of New Hampshire. There were only a couple of "deer trails" through the thickest of the hemocks.
The deer had only lightly barked the hemlock trees and browsing was minimal suggesting that the deer had spent little time here this winter. At the bottom of the slope I headed across a snow bride over the burbling brook beneath my feet. I sort of walked the edge of the brook until the sound was pretty muffled suggesting a good snow bride to get across the brook. While the brook is only 10 or 12 feet wide and not very deep, the snow had piled into the ravene and was 4 or 5 feet deep. Breaking through the snow while crossing would likely get me somewhat wet, but I would end up in a huge snow hole. It's can be hard to get out of them.
Across the brook there was no deer sign at all. This late in the winter the deer were staying on the East side of the brook and on the southwesterly facing slope where the sun has reduced the snow amount significantly. In fact I measured 25 inches of snow on the West side and only 15 on the East.
Pitching back up the hill towards my truck I followed a porcupine trail to it's den in a rocky outcrop. The woods were so still this afternoon. The hushed burbling brook was pretty much the only sound except for an occasional crow call. I stood for a while and listen to the few pines towering about the hemlocks barely whispering. Individual trees and not the whole forest. It was a very peaceful hike.
When I got home about 4:30 I quickly took my dogs out for a walk down into the meadow. I traversed the slight bit of field edge barely showing any bare ground. I did see a barred owl on the ground at the far end of the corn field. I spun on my heels and called the dogs away to leave him to his doings. It's tough enough for an owl to make a living this winter without me and my dogs messing things up for him. Still it is very light at 6:00 PM. Hooray for more sun light.
