New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff
The sultry summer Suncook River and one of my pet peeves
Monday 08/01/2005
The sultry summer weather has really set in today. The Suncook River is a hazy mirage in this late afternoon sun. The air is hot, sticky and completely still. It seems like everything, including sounds, are smothered by the thickness to the air.
Not even the bubbling house wren, who announced his presence here last Thursday afternoon, cares to cast a song into the thick morass. For some reason the wren pair started nest building in the recently vacated bird house on a post by my front door. Chickadees already have fledged a couple of broods there. It is full of sticks when I checked it this afternoon, but the wrens are absent. Wrens are a late nester here. Another sign that summer is well along when they begin to nest. I saw flocks of starlings and black birds this weekend. This kind of caught me off guard a bit. It is really that late into the summer I wondered as they wheeled past me? Ducks are beginning to flock too.
As I drove to the office today, back from two weeks off, the Lee Traffic Circle was in glorious splendor. It is completely covered in blazing flowers planed there by NH DOT to pretty the place up. It looks real pretty. Trouble is, it is one of my pet peeves. You see a portion of the NH Moose Plate "conservation" money goes towards planting flowers here and all along the state's highways.
In my opinion they are all death traps for the wildlife the conservation fund is supposed to be "conserving". Let's face it all these flowers draw in thousands of nectarine insects, such as honey bees, which are then smeared all over our windshields. This is by day and night since many moths are nectar seeking animals too. Then there are the birds who go there to eat the bugs. Smack! They're smeared too. I just think that many of these beautiful flower beds, especially those planed in the mediums of I-93 and I-89, are sink holes to the local fauna. At least someone should prove to me that they are not before tens of thousands of "conservation dollars" are spent creating them. I doubt those purchasing the conservation plates would approve. Why not spend the conservation dollars DOT gets to actually help wildlife. Like protecting some wildlife travel corridors along the highways. Or maybe if they go to flowers, buy some land on hill sides away from the highways that would make pretty distant views. Not wildlife killers. If DOT wants to plant flowers along the highways, especially right in the middle or edge, let them do it. Let's just not call it "conservation".
