New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

Tree frogs in full chorus and waist high grass to mow.

Wednesday 06/13/2007

Wow, how things have shot out of the ground! The local farmer has been chopping the alfalfa fields this last week. Bordering a chopped field near me, where I took a hike to see what there was to see, the remaining hay was over waist high with some shoulder high ( I'm 6'2"). It seems like we have had a great combination of sun and rain to get things growing this year. The first row of potatoes I planted at my mothers place down the road is blooming which means I'll have some new potatoes to eat in a couple weeks.

The tree frogs, that were migrating past my house through the trees a week ago, have now settled into the meadow down back and are in full breeding mode. My local bull frogs should be, adding to, any day now. Peepers and toads have departed. The peepers had a long go of it this spring, but the toad calling was short lived this year. I can't figure that out, except it seems like we didn't have a long sustained period of real hot temperatures. This will be the second year in a row of a lousy American toad breeding disaster. I doubt I'll have the waves of hundreds of baby toads pushing across my lawn the first of July. Last year was a total bust for toads because of the Mother's Day flood. This year's flood came a month earlier, but seems to have had an impact as well.

Duck and geese will soon be loosing their flight feathers for a couple weeks. The house wren in my back yard seems to be making enough noise for a whole flock of other birds. If not for him it seems it is very quiet around here. Many birds have already had their first nesting attempt of the season. The next nesting cycles are way more subtle.

I guess, due to the April floods, the dams have not been closed downstream of me on the Suncook River. I stopped to check them a couple days ago. They seem to be in working order, but have been left in the "open" position. Consequently the Suncook River below me here is down greatly. The new sandbar upriver is well out water. I'm a bit worried for the frog and fish eggs that have been deposited in the shallow coves. Soon they will too be waterless killing of yet another year of reproduction. The Suncook River just seems to be the Rodney Dangerfield waters " It gets no respect". It just seems every flood fiasco now delivers a biological one a few months later. It is disheartening.