New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

S.l.o.w.l.y creeping into spring.

Friday 05/02/2014

The past wet and cold week has slowed spring down around here. My lilacs that were budding over a week ago have hardly popped open the way I would have expected by now. The blossoms are there but are ever so slowly opening up. We definitely need a few days of sun and warmer temperatures to kick things back into gear. We have been running 20 degrees below average and the cloudy days haven't added any warmth.

Peepers are in full chorus and the wood frogs have long departed the ponds locally. One thing that has changed a bit the last week as the browns of winter have pretty much vanished with fields turning green despite the chill.

The heavy rains of the last few days has brought the Suncook River back up again after it was near a summer low it looked for a few days. No doubt there is plenty of ground water from the melted snows that will continue to seep into our stream and rivers for weeks yet. I noticed the Merrimack River was pretty high this week as well. We will definitely need some warmth to warm the rivers and lakes up before our bass even think about spawning.

I'm seeing plenty of deer around at last light in the evenings. Driving back last evening from a meeting at the Belknap County Sportsmen's Association meeting I nearly saw the truck in front of me hit a deer. Why those fools didn't hit the breaks after the first deer leaped across the road in front of them only to have a second deer come way too close to a collision. Nary a tap of the breaks for either one. Folks are just not paying attention, especially at dusk.

I did get out turkey hunting with my grand daughter Katie last Sunday as well as her dad and uncle. We were out before first light to enjoy the awakening of the woods. We had turkeys gobbling from two sides. Despite setting up at two sites we were not able to call them in. I think the cool drizzly morning turned the turkeys off.