New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff
Deer, ducks, geese, gobblers and more. How sweet it is!
Friday 03/30/2007
Life is just so FULL of life this week and beyond. I had to run up to Fish and Game HQ this morning. I ended up doing an interview for channel 9 on mountain lions since an article about them is on the front page of the Concord Monitor today. Coyotes, fisher, or fishercats as they are mostly called, and mountain lions have been the gist of the wildlife mill practically my whole career. Throw in bears and bobcats for good measure and you have the species most folks in New Hampshire have a story, opinion or question about. Since I was the Departments bear-biologist from 1978 to the early 90's and the furbearer biologist from about 1980 to present I have been on the forefront of the critters my whole career. There are simply not enough weeks in the year, days in a week or hours in a day to satisfy the demand for information about these species. I've felt all along that I was the tail of these critters being pulled into newspaper articles, radio and TV interviews. And what fun it has been. Wildlife is so mystical that being part of them has been a wonderful experience. I love talking and teaching folks about all the wonderful wildlife in this great state and have ben lucky enough to be a part of so many exciting changes.
After the interview I headed east deciding to take the back way home to load a 4-wheeler and trailer for next weeks work on piping plovers in Hampton. In the short dozen or fifteen mile ride home wildlife was at every turn of my head. Mind you I do turn my head a lot LOOKING for wildlife. And there it was. First a gaggle of gobblers in East Concord. Quickly followed by a small herd of deer in Chichester, and mallards here and there in nearly every wetland and oxbow. Near the end of my trek was a gaggle of geese in a field greening up and leaping across another field just above them were more deer running across my view. Life is so full of life right now. Earlier this week I came home to a brilliant cock pheasant strutting across my front lawn and stopped long enough to crow. Robins dot nearly every lawn and open field and the last few days I've heard numerous song sparrows calling. There is just such and exuberance to life right now. And frogs and salamanders are not far behind. Days away at most.
The Suncook River is totally ice free with mallards, wood ducks and hooded mergansers splashing in within my view from time to time. I stopped at some Fish and Game land mid week for my annual pick-some-pussy-willows-day. Life is soooooo good!
