New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

Yes we have snow and more!

Wednesday 02/20/2013

Well I guess we finally did get snow two weekends ago. In fact I was measuring 25 to 27 inches in my yard at the conclusion of the storm. How quickly life was swallowed up by old man winter around here. Deer and turkeys simply disappeared overnight. Literally.

No doubt our deer are headed to the thick cover of hemlocks along our brooks and swamps to escape the deepest of the snow. But boy did they have it easy going into winter. Now it is the amount of time with 18 inches or more of snow on the ground that can wear our deer numbers down. Although last night's rain should have knocked the snow down some and if we get another big freeze it may cap the snow with a good crust putting the deer on top of the snow. Deep snow going into April will hit our deer hard around here based on my decades of experience.

Back when I worked at the Fish and Game Department one of my annual winter duties was to get out into deer wintering yards to check on deer numbers, amount of deer browsing and the winter's impacts on our deer. Certain yards I checked every winter while each winter we also checked new ones. This is done each winter by biologists across the state and has been done by Fish and Game for over 70 years. It is amazing how they can browse the limbs down on hemlocks some winters. Another common food item is the bark of the trees as well. I am worried about our overall warming winters as a new disease is moving northward as the climate warms. This disease has killed off ALL the hemlocks in states to the south of us.

Here it would impact us greatly when we do get a deep prolonged snow leaving practically no winter cover for our deer.

But the sun will soon rule no matter what old man winter throws at us. When I lived in Londonderry in the 1960's we had normal tough winters but most years I could find a bit of sun drenched earth to smell and lay on along the northern fringes of the fields where the sun had a chance to work its magic. Here too I would often flush a woodcock the last week of February. How of love that first whiff of sun soaked earth each spring. I have often said if I were Rip Van Winkle and slept for some 50 years I could pin at least the month and probably the week any day that I awoke. Yes days and weeks of the year have different smells, let along the sounds and sights. If you really absorb nature the rhythm and pulse of the earth is so detectable.