New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff
Seeping sap, it's spring..yess!
Tuesday 03/07/2006
Spring signs are seeping, singing and standing sentinel the last several days.
When I stopped home late this afternoon for a pit stop before heading back out for this evenings NH Trappers Association meeting I noticed the sap buckets my neighbor has hung on my maple out front. For several years, when my kids were young, I tapped the red maples around my lawn and the huge sugar maples on another neighbor's lawn up the road. My kids would empty the jugs we had hung from the sap spiral into a big tub each morning on the way up to the bus stop. Then we boiled it down on our wood stove or kitchen stove. We had quarters of thick maple syrup for several years and plenty of sweet candy as well. One of my favorite things, going back to my youth, is to sip the nearly frozen sap straight from the bucket some cold morning. And when my neighbor asked to hang his buckets I threw that in the deal. The sun had nearly set when I snapped a few pictures of the slow dripping tree this afternoon. Have you ever actually watched sap slowly drip from a tree? It is soothing.
Meanwhile, down back on the river, a pair of hooded mergansers showed up Monday morning. The white-crested male is standing sentinel constantly right at the bend in the river where the ice and open water line meets. Almost as if he is guarding the last vestiges of ice on the river, or most likely his chosen spot to set up his territory. This is an annual event about mid March. Usually one morning I'll notice a small opening in the ice right below my house. Uncannily, within minutes, a pair of hooded mergansers will be in the opening. Of coarse this year the river has been open all winter, but the mergansers have waited at least until now to claim the water. Even with a glance out any of my rear windows the white crest of the drake stands out. Hooded mergansers are really small ducks, much smaller than a mallard, but that brilliant white crown just catches your eye. As it has the demur, dull colored, female that sits at ice edge as the drake marches back and forth across the river. He is so full of himself.
A beaver ventured out of its bank den at last light for a paddle around the river too, as a herd of mallards coursed upriver. I had to take a second look, as at first glance it looked like a mallards wake in the river, but years of staring at the river peaked my interest for a closer look. The beaver just seemed to be stretched out just above the ice not going anywhere but just staying in one spot as it paddled against the strong current. Happy, no doubt, that the ice was quickly melting from the river and he can patrol once again for some new fresh sprouts.
I did hear the spring call of a tufted titmouse down in the meadow as well. I got out my parabolic listen device and have been filtering the morning air for a red winged black bird call. No luck yet, but it hours, maybe a few days, away. The tempo of spring is just about to kick into high gear. There is no better time to watch, hear and smell spring unfold than the next several weeks. I'm ready to absorb it all!
