New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

A warm rain is falling tonight sending swarms of frogs across our roads.

Saturday 09/16/2006

We have been in a real heat wave for this time of year the last several days. More like mid summer temperatures it seems to me. The only thing missing was the very high humidity of this summer's heat waves.

I ended up late this afternoon into this evening working on a land conservation project near Great Bay with the Rockingham Land Trust folks. Talk about a very successful group working to conserve some of the most critical wildlife habitat in a region of the state under the greatest threat to development.They have worked miracles in Rockingham County.

I have been appointed to a committee as the Fish and Game representative to monitor the development of a conservation plan for a several hundred acre tract not far from Great Bay. We were lead by Phil Auger of the Rockingham County Extension Office who has been instrumental in many of the conservation successes in the county and beyond. He led us to a very well managed large land tract in Exeter. Phil wanted to show us how an effective long-term land management plan can improve the wildlife habitat and forest management. We can use the experience from this to guide us in our recommendations for management of the new tract.

The meeting ran well into the evening and I found myself leaving the land trust office about 7:30 as it began to drizzle. By the time I got to Raymond it was raining pretty hard and frogs were springing forth from both sides of the road. I hate to drive on these nights when so many frogs are on the move. Bull frogs, green frogs, peepers and toads were all on the move in my hour-long drive home. I was swerving and dodging all over the road straddling any frog-like thing in the road. Trouble is, lots of leaves are falling, and it was hard to tell what was what on this dark and stormy night.

When I got home I was greeted by a giant water beetle hanging on to the side of my house. It was over two inches long. It looked prehistoric.

Last night I gave a lecture at the Beaver Brook Association in Hollis to the group of folks taking the week-long Woodlot and Wildlife Management Workshop put on by the Hillsboro Cooperative Extension folks. As usual the air was full of crickets and cicadas as I left about 8:00 PM. This is the only place in NH that I hear the loud ca, ca, ca of a cicada I only have ever heard in states to the south of us.

This is always a great group to talk to and get to know. It is these citizens who will be shaping their communities particularly in regards to land conservation. I always find the same people and names involved in conservation efforts for years to come when I give one of these lectures. NH would be such a different place without them. It is amazing how just a couple of folks in a community can have an ever lasting affect on land conservation in a community.