New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

Waiting for the cork to pop on spring.

Friday 03/27/2015

It just feels like we are waiting for spring to pop like a cork on a shaken bottle of champagne. The land has been smothered by winter's grip long enough. The Merrimack River in Concord is slowly melting open this week as I have glanced at it in my several trips there. No big flush out by an overnight downpour or a day in the mid 60's flashing it open all at once. Spring just seems to be held at bay. The Suncook River out my view remains nearly completely ice covered.

But once we get a few days of real sun with our temperatures in the teens, like we have been having, I think things will pop. The sun has climbed ever so high in the sky and all the plants of the forest floor from flowers to ferns need to spring up out of the ground and blossom before leaf out. That usually occurs around here by the end of the first week of May. So really there is just over 30 days for the snow to melt on the forest floor and for these plants to absorb the sun before being shaded.

Same goes for the frogs and salamanders to get moving into the vernal pools to get their eggs laid and into hatching mode. I did drive along A1A from Rye to North Hampton on Wednesday afternoon. Even along our coast spring seems to be held at bay. Snow banks along the road were still high with snow. Most of the marshes remain ice covered to a large extent and Eel Pond in Rye remains completely iced over. I did not some big flocks of black ducks lounging about the little open water I saw. They are stacked up along the coast ready to disperse with a warming ice melting few days.

Things will no doubt bust wide open in the next week or two. Spring will fly by like the ducks headed north. The tempo is bound to pick up any day now. I need to dig out my parabolic listening device to begin vacuuming the view from my deck for the sounds of red winged blackbirds and others. Oh, come on spring!