New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

Its pouring down leaves.

Friday 10/24/2014

What a difference a few days has made around here. Tuesday's high winds were ripping the leaves from the trees of much of their color. Only the yellow and brownish oaks were holding fast to their leaves. The down pours of today has pretty well driven off the last of the colored leaves for certain. Tomorrow will dawn as a more November like gray day for sure. Not that we have had November temperatures. In fact I just read in the Concord Monitor that the month of September was the warmest on record going back 135 years. I think we have had maybe one frost here so far. Not your typical October either from what I have seen.

Color wise September into mid October was spectacular. September was not only warm but dry. I saw that it was the third driest September ever with less than an inch of rain. This surely stressed many trees as all at once nearly all the trees turned color by mid September and held on to the color longer than most years. This truly was a unique fall in that regards. Warm and gorgeous for several weeks. This should have been a record year for leaf peepers.

My spring peeper and tree frog that spent most of the summer hiding under my garage siding has been gone now a while. Maybe two weeks ago on a warm wet night I had to dodge some frogs but none lately. I'm still so amazed how these small creatures can stop feeding and breathing for the next six months and yet come out in spring in robust condition and ready to lay hundreds of eggs. How can that be?

With ample rain and really no frost our fields about remain lush green. We are having a pretty good acorn drop this fall so wildlife like deer and turkeys should go into the lean winter months in good shape. All in all I think our wildlife is in great shape. Canada geese have been milling about. These are the resident geese that stay put in NH most of the year and only migrating south enough to miss deep snow. That means most of these geese spent their winter in southern NH or northern Mass or maybe down to NY. But will retreat back here as the snow melts. I have not seen a single migratory flock of geese in a V high overhead. They usually are migrating through about now. They come from northern Quebec and migrate south several states away.

Pretty much a warm dry fall.