New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

See-sawing on winters edge and weird compass readings.

Tuesday 11/22/2005

Here we are at the end of November in one of the warmest, and record setting wet falls, I can remember. But I'm pretty sure that is about to change. In fact snow is predicted here on Thanksgiving Day afternoon. The temperatures took a tumble last week. By Friday and Saturday ice covered the meadow down back. When I was out in the woods hunting over the weekend I also noted the small ponds were skimmed over and remained so all day and got thicker with each passing cold night. The temperatures have warmed this week, plus we had a warm rain overnight last night that has wiped out any ice locally. Still the days are growing shorter and the water itself does not warm under such condition so is quick to refreeze.

The heavy rain a few days ago brought the water level right back up to a low flood stage, even though my rain gauge showed less than an inch fell. The ground is so saturated that the smallest amount of rain runs right off rising the river.

I've had a couple of weird observations that I haven't figured out, have read nothing about in the media, and wonder if anyone else is seeing them.

The weirdest is my compass readings lately. Actually it started back in early November at deer camp. My son Adam took out his compass that has not seen the light of day in a while and noticed that the north pointing end was pointing south. I actually argued with him a bit thinking the red end was supposed to point south and the white end north. It was a nice Silva compass he has had for over a decade. But it was acting backwards so he tossed it. I didn't bother checking my Silva since I didn't need it in the places I was hunting. But my little liquid filled pin-on compass on my orange vest seemed to be working fine. Now fast forward to my last trip over on the coast last weekend to hunt a new piece of land I have not hunted and has been acquired by Fish and Game over the last four or five years. I pulled my Silva out of my belly pack to take a reading before heading off into the woods. Yikes, mine pointed backwards too. A few feet away the road was running east and west as I looked at a map, so I was well orientated. But my compass was wrong. You have to be able to TRUST your compass. This compass, that has served me well for over 30 years, was 180 degrees off. Some of my other compasses are pointing off. In fact no two compasses point in the same direction. I'm confused. I did see on the Science Channel that earth is overdue for a change in polarity of the planet, but it should take 10,000 years or so to flip. Not ten weeks. I must just be going off the deep end or something.

The other weird observation, now supported by trapper Mel Listen with a month in the field trapping, is a drastic decline in small mammals numbers locally. For me it started this summer when there just seemed to be few chipmunks. I also began noticing fewer dead gray squirrels on the roads. Dead squirrels are a fact of life in the roads around here and most days I might see a dozen or more. But not lately. In three 8-hour days of sitting in my tree stand in Maine I saw only one gray squirrel and one red squirrel. I should be seeing numbers of squirrels per hour. With the cold snap last week I have filled my bird feeders and platform with black oil seed sunflowers. I have had but one red squirrel visit so far. Usually there are gray squirrels lined up to hop onto the platform and fight for position. None yet!

Last winter into this spring I had a number of calls from people who saw gray squirrels simply drop dead in front of them; one caller reported one falling out of a tree and landed dead. Is there some disease hitting the rodent population this year I have to wonder? When I saw Mel last night at the NH Wildlife Federation meeting he says that mice and squirrels numbers are way down in the large area he traps in Strafford county. Fortunately Fish and Game has a small game report form as well as a bow hunter wildlife observation form. So a science based survey is underway this fall. These volunteer hunter surveys should document and significant changes in squirrel numbers state wide. But if we have had a drastic reduction in small mammals it is sure to echo a decline in predator numbers from foxes and fisher to hawks and owls. All wildlife has cycles over time. Perhaps this is one and even if it is, chances are it is just a local event. But it sure has me wondering what is going on around us all, yet remains for the most part undetected.