New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

Bring on the toads. Where are the toads? Suddenly, they are not here!

Wednesday 07/19/2006

My lawn remains baby tot toadless this year. It is the second or third week of July that normally sends waves of tiny tot toads up the hill from the meadow below and literally covering my lawn for two or three days. It is a week I skip mowing. But this year is a bust. I am toadless so far. The American toads were right on schedule, or even a week early, in early May calling in the back eddy of the Suncook River down back.

Then came the May Flood which shut them off for a month. A few returned to call in June as they mixed in with the chorus of tree frogs. So maybe I'll see a few yet as it takes a couple months for them to sprout legs to head out of the water to visit me.

But I doubt it. The May Flood may have swept some eggs away, or even the heavy load of silt may have smothered some. I think many would have survived that. But the real disaster for wildlife in this section of the Suncook River was man made. Because of the debris above the Buck Street dam in Pembroke, and a concern it may plug the dam gates opened during the flood, they gate was left wide open until a week ago. This dewatered all the oxbows and back channels in this stretch of the Suncook. Even the river bed itself was nearly dry during the hot weather of June into early July. All the back waters, which are by far the most productive for wildlife, dried out killing the aquatic life including all the toads it seemed. From tadpoles to fish eggs and even the aquatic plants the lack of water has killed off this years crop of young.

No doubt the plants will bounce back but there is no chance that the animals could lay another bunch of eggs for another cycle. The NH DES folks were quick to restore the water level a week ago when I notified them of my concern. But even a few hours of no water would have killed off the tadpoles. And we had a month of drought in the back channels. And there is much debris that remains lodged on the river's edge that will migrate down to the dam over time. I hope a remedy can be found so the dam gates can remain closed during the critical spring breeding and growth time needed to produce juvenile fish, frogs and toads. 2006 HAS BEEN A COMPLETE DISASTER IN THIS SECTION OF THE SUNCOOK RIVER FOR WILDLIFE.

Oh what difference a day makes in weather. I was working on repairing some equipment at the Region 3 office yesterday morning and was changing my sweat soaked shirts every half hour. It was beastly not and humid all day. Day five for a heat wave in NH. We have not had string of days in the 90's in three years. There is so much ground water that hardly anything has wilted or even begin to brown up. Lawns have remained brilliantly green through the drought and heat wave.

Yesterday afternoon a fellow arrived at my house about 5 in the afternoon for a cruise in my raft on the Suncook. He wants to document on video the changes caused by the river changing channel. I kept an eye on the weather radar on my TV just before we headed out as severe thunderstorms were headed our way. But they swept by just two towns to the north of Epsom just as we got on the river. It got very windy with my little electric motor barely pushing us up river against the current and the strong wind. In just a half hour the cool front moved through dropping the temperatures from the low 90's to the high 70's. Cool dry air. I got off the river with him around 7.

I just needed more of the perfect night, so I hooked up with Rick by 8:30 or so. We were right back down by the river enjoying a peaceful evening on the river with a fire in his fire bowl at the very edge of the river. Sounds were few last night. Only one bullfrog gave us a call. We didn't answer. A huge water spider walked out from under his raft and dashed ashore into some sedges right past a large green frog. These half dollar sized spiders literally walk on top of the water film.

We stayed until close to 11 and then decided to walk. We covered a sand pit, a field, some woods trails and the road between our houses in the darkness for another hour or two. It was such a great night to be alive and enjoying the out of doors that it was hard to give up.

It was the smells that were peaking my senses last night. Deer Brook filled the air with it's sweet aroma. And how it gurgled on the darkness. And it was vary dark. No moon and a cloud cover had not a star or much else visible in the sky. Deer Brook, we both noted, sounded more like a spring flow than the mid July trickle we are accustomed to. We never did turn on a light, but studied the brook, as we sat on the bridge, by its sounds and smell.

In fact, as I walked home I could locate where I was by the smells. Spring Brook, as my kids named it two decades ago, flows under the road through a small culvert. It had a robust aroma of moss smelling air, and it seemed to roar too, a tiny roar, but a roar for a little brook that is normally nearly dry this time of year. There was a lot to see last night in the total darkness, even if most of it was in my mind, as I listened and sniffed the cooling night air.