New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff
Deer yards, duck boxes and dicey ice to boot.
Wednesday 03/23/2005
DEAD HOODED MERG IN BOX
Fire by ice corey wma
Hot dog-deer yard check day
Successful hatching duck box
I'm finally getting to the last of the duck boxes I check annually. A lack of ice early winter, then deep snow by the time we had good ice has me running a bit behind this year. Over the last two days I have made my deepest runs into the wilderness of Region 3 to wrap up the duck box work.
Yesterday morning I hit a local pond to quickly take care of it. The ice seemed great and the walking without snowshoe on the pond made quick work of the boxes there. Still this year's ice has been weird. Right in the middle of this 15 acre pond I noticed a dark spot. As I skirted it I could see a 5 foot hole right in the middle of the pond. Good thing I am not out here at night. Plenty of ice on the rest of the pond, just not in that one spot.
By late morning I headed well into Bear Brook State Park on my 3-wheeled ATV. No problem getting to my first stop where only a couple of boxes were posted on metal posts. I drove the ATV right out on to the ice. First box no problem, but as I stopped at the second box the front tire dropped right through the ice. Good thing I stopped where I did.
By the time I got down to Hall Mountain Marsh the sun had warmed the day nicely. And the top 5 or 6 inches of ice had turned to slush on much of the marsh. Numerous open holes and "dark ice" kept my heart in my throat the rest of the time out there. Still this is one of my favorite places to get to in the winter. The 10,000 acre Park has a few places that humanity is absent; No dogs barking or traffic sounds. Hall Mountain Marsh is one of my few escapes from the civilized world in this part of New Hampshire.
Today I hit the Fish and Game Departments Corey Wildlife Management Area in Deerfield. Another "remote" spot here in Downeast New Hampshire. I was able to drive my truck part way into this site on an active logging road. But it took me two hours of snowshoeing to check dozen duck boxes on the lower and upper beaver ponds. I measured 17 to 20 inches of snow in the hardwoods. It was slow going, it seemed like most of it was up hill, plus the slight crust gave way at each step slowing my pace.
Checking duck boxes is always an interesting task. Today one box held a dead hen hooded merganser and her clutch of eggs. She was missing her head. My guess is a mink or a weasel did her in last May. They typically take off the heads first. Some boxes clearly show "successful" hatchlings. Ducklings have an egg tooth that they use to open the large end of the egg at hatching. The membrane under the shell is often the only part left whole mixed in with the down, egg shell fragments and pine shavings that we replace each winter. The little membrane is called an "egg cap". Count them and you can tell how many ducklings were hatched from the box. Yesterday at Hall Mountain I had a dozen eggs that were just hatching when the mother abandoned them for some reason. Lots of eggs were partially hatched and a couple of desiccated ducklings lay in the bottom of the box.
I arrived at the upper pond about noon. I often bring a couple of hot dogs to roast over a fire for lunch here. By my watch I had a fire going and perfectly cooked a hot dog in under 6 minutes! After a brief lunch break I headed up again into one of the larger deer yards in the area. Another near hour of climbing up towards Nottingham Mountain. As I expected only recent deer activity in the yard. Not much hemlock barking this winter. In fact even with the relatively deep snow the deer were just traversing the yard. Hardly any deer trails. The snow came late this winter and the deer seemed to prefer the steep south facing slopes, with late February and March sun, to the shaded but usually warmer thick hemlock stands.
I set my GPS unit to GOTO my truck and took the short way out arriving at my truck after 5 hours on the shoes. My cloths were wringing wet with sweat by the time I got out. I was beat! I haven't spent that much time on snowshoes in a while. Still lots to see the last couple of days. Winter has not released his grip on the woods in this part of the state. It is a rare year to have much snow left around here on April Fools Day. But this year is sure to be an exception. Boy, am I sore and tired tonight!
