New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

A goosing week.

Thursday 06/30/2005

I am beat. Totally beat. I have just spent the last 6 of 8 days catching Canada geese as part of the annual "NH Goose Crew" round up. I have done it for 15 years. Nearly every day that geese have been captured in New Hampshire, I have been part of the team that has done it. Most years, since the beginning, we try to capture 600 to 800 geese. Perhaps it is just my age showing. Or the age of the rest of the annual Goose crew, Julie and Ed Robinson and Mike Fanny the last few years.. Despite great help from several volunteers and other Fish and Game staff members it just seems like I am wrung out this year.

Last year we spent the whole week short handed with just 6 of us most days. But this year we had several volunteers; some every day. And they, as always, made life so much better. But it was the unrelenting heat that has taken it's toll on us "regulars". At our second stop today, poor Ed Robinson, the waterfowl biologist, and team leader, collapsed at one point from heat exhaustion. He will no doubt harass me for letting on about it at all. It is a very stressful week for Ed, leading the team, and at every stop he does the bulk of the manual labor building the capture coral. To tell you the truth I felt a little light headed at times today despite drinking lots of water. The week just wears you down.

But I'm sure we captured and banded at least 550 geese with another banding day to be done in a week or so in Region 1.

Locally, when I have had a chance to check things out, since the last several day when I get home we are in the middle of a terrific thunder shower, I did step outside for a few minutes a couple of nights for a listen. Although there are a few tree frogs down in the meadow I did hear most of them in the trees around the house. They are heading back to the forest after the breeding season. We really are headed for the doldrums of summer. Summer is at hand. In fact half of what we usually know as summer, May and June ,has passed us by in not a summer like fashions. My rain gauge has registered nearly four inches of rain from the last two storms. The Suncook River, and the Merrimack, are running chocolate brown and fairly high for summer. It seems like they have been this way since April. It has been a very weird year to date.