New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

It's hot, hot, hot in Florida and cool, cool, cool here. Not much for birds or bees to see.

Thursday 04/27/2006

I just got back from a week in Florida, Orlando that is, with an in-law gathering. Travel always is interesting with lots of different things to see. Except I saw far fewer wild things than I expected.

First of all, it was hot, hot, hot with days all running into the low 90's, while here at home it was a wet and cold week. Even the nights only cooled down into the 80,s. The local weather person said they were having May temperatures for this April. Global warming??

Two things really surprised me. The most by far was the lack of insects, particularly bees. Flowers were in full bloom every where, but I saw a total of only two honey bees all week, two butterflies necturing and not an ant. The first couple of day my wife and I were in a hotel with a 70 yard long row of flowering shrubs. Not a bee or even a fly was on the flowers. I'm guessing the heavy use of insecticides down there has killed them off. I can't think of any other reason for the lack of insects on the thousands of flowers I saw; Only one worm too.

Of coarse most of my time was at a huge timeshare place with perfectly manicured grass, shrubs and trees. But each morning I walked an hour or so including on the resorts " Nature Trail" that paralleled the golf coarse just inside the remaining patch of woods on the " 160 acre resort". It was pretty in many ways and I'm sure just what folks want to see and enjoy. But it was a biological desert as far as I could tell. Lots of skinks and anoles though. And I took a picture one morning on the nature trail of a nice green anole eating a brown skink. I saw boat tailed grackles eating them too. But my bird list was pretty short. It included fish crows, mocking birds, mourning doves, grackles and house sparrows most days and toss in some mallards, one of which kept landing in the huge pool filled with dozens of people.

All in all a fun week and a break from what little winter we had. But it always feels so good to get home. Here everything was on hold this last week. The grass grew but my flowers didn't change and the leaves stopped in their tracks due to the cold conditions. So I don't think I missed much. Maybe the Saturday night salamander and frog movement in the rain.

So I am again taking the pulse of wild things back in New Hampshire where I belong.