New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

Still toadless, katydids on the move and the grand Suncook River tour.

Thursday 08/24/2006

Days slip by so quickly this time of year, even though they remain long in light. But just in the last week or ten days I have noticed night fall around 8:00 pm. Late August night conditions started early this year, nearly two weeks ago, with days up into the 80's, but nights cooling to the low 50's with lots of dew in the morning. It is this time of year that spider webs seam to be woven every where as the early morning dew makes them visible.

In my evening walks I have seen numbers of long slender green colored hatydids. But not a chirp yet. We are over due for their chiming into the summer afternoon air with their long buzz. The males rub the rough edges of their wings to broadcast the sound. And hear by ears on their front legs. Crickets still rule the night air.

I have not seen one juvenile American toad on my lawn yet this year. The late spring calling in early June after the big floods should have produced a wave of young the first or second week of August, but did not. So the toad reproduction in this section of the Suncook River was a total bust this year. I can't imagine the frogs and fish faired any better.

I had another 2.6 inches of rain a few nights ago which colored the Suncook River again and raised it 6 inches or so. There is still so much ground water even the small brooks keep trickling this summer when most years they would have long since dried.

Last night I gave the "Grand Tour" of the Suncook River changes for the Bear-Paw Region Greenways group. Executive Director Dan Kern had alerted me to an interest and from the calls to register and alerted me to "At least 25 or 30 folks should be expected." At the appointed hour and place last evening folks just kept streaming in by the car loads. I'd say close to 60. I lost count in the mid 50's as others were arriving. It seemed like half the town of Epsom was present with the faces I knew, plus tons of others. So my usual one-hour tour took over two and darkness chased us from the last stop at "Epsom's Grand Canyon". It was good to reconnect with the folks from town.

Today I'm off to count nuts. Literally. This is the second year of a long-term Eastern US hard mast survey. I have numbered two plots of trees in Bear Brook State Park, red oak and beech trees, where I will look for a certain period of time with binoculars to determine if there are any nuts on the trees this year. There are similar plots all over this state and most others along the east coast. These foods are such significant wildlife foods that there is a regional effort to document them annually.

Actually I started to tally these foods on an annual basis in NH in the early 1980s. I have done it using this state's trappers. These are folks I know who glean all sorts of information all year long in order to be successful trappers. So way back when, I began quarrying them by an annual voluntary survey form. And I didn't just ask for hard mast, acorns and beechnuts, but I have a full page list including: all sorts of berries (soft mast), apples, cones, mice, squirrels, chipmunks, marten, bobcats, lynx, moose, bear and turkeys. The last three date back to when they were far less common than today. But I have documented this change over the long term based on trappers observations all over the state.