New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

Unrelenting winter. Our festive Christmas looking bushes have been turned into a Halloween look in Durham.

Wednesday 03/02/2005

Winter was late getting here it seemed, but has a pretty firm grip on us now. Even the climbing sun has seemingly lost it's grip in pulling us into spring. We have had about two weeks of below average temperature and at least another week predicted. The cold temperatures have been flavored with frequent snow deposits as well. Although there still isn't a real deep cover of snow in Epsom yet. I can still walk without snowshoes in the nearby fields. I like that. I do feel trapped by winter when I can't just get out and walk anywhere I want without snowshoes. So far no need for them. In fact it has been at least a couple of winters, I think, since I have needed them much. I like the freedom of a snowshoe-less winter.

I did notice late last week that the bitter berries of winter were being snatched quickly from the high bush cranberries at the Fish and Game Region 3 office in Durham. I planted them nearly two decades ago. Late last fall these same shrubs were laden with fruits that have clung to the sagging branches nearly all winter. The bitter berries are shunned by most fall migrating birds. All that has changed within the last week or so. Right on schedule, the cedar waxwings have moved in to strip the bushes bare of their bitter treats. I guess it is good to have some fruits that remain unpalatable until late into a now seemingly long winter. I'm glad I planted a variety of fruiting shrubs the spring after I moved into the Regional office in December of 1988. The bushes have remained festive-looking all winter, sort of a Christmas ornament, but now look more like a gnarled Halloween-looking decoration.

They have been completely stripped of the red fruits and look gaunt against the snow white background.

I have smelled but only a couple of skunks, and that was over two weeks ago now. I wonder if this below average winter freeze will actually delay the mating and therefore the birth of skunks. Perhaps some other animals as well. I doubt that raccoons are moving, or for that matter breeding much in this cold snap either. I wonder if this means a later than usual birthing season for all these critters. Looks like the wildlife rehabilatators will have their hands full of baby wildlife well into the summer this year.

I haven't heard the coyotes howling near my house yet either. This last full moon typically spikes their breeding season. Although it has been so cold that I have not ventured out for a late night hike as in some years past. So winter has even kept me at bay, or from baying myself, the last couple of weeks. The calendar suggests spring is less than three weeks away. I hope reality catches up to perception by then.