New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff
It's spring, it's spring!
Tuesday 01/09/2007
By all appearances it is spring out my home office window this morning. And just four days ago it was more summer-like with temperatures in the low 70's. This is nothing like I have ever seen in my 56 years of life mid winter in NH. Most of it is attributed to the late summer El Nino formed out in the Pacific Ocean. But it is also said that global warming is tainting the trends by having more extremes. This is definitely an extreme.
Locally all the lakes and ponds have thawed from what little ice we had. So from my observations Northwood Lake froze very late, thawed a week, mostly skimmed with ice another week and now has totally thawed once more. A freeze/thaw cycle I also have never seen before. Apparently we have some arctic temperatures sliding this way, but my observations tell me it will be very difficult to freeze some of the larger lakes, and certainly not the rivers this winter. The days are getting longer and the afternoon sun higher and warmer by the day. The ground has not frozen yet. My tulips are up three inches which has me worried they will not start to bloom, then freeze.
Fields are lush green and the sightings of deer grazing in them has shot up to typical spring-time levels. This is a mid to late March phenomenon, not January. Over the weekend I was batting mosquitos out of the house and moths were flying in numbers by evening. Lots of insect life, again more like a mid spring day.
The Suncook River is at another low flood stage from the 2 1/2 inches of rain on Friday plus another dose on Monday. But for the most part the rivers and brooks have been low as expected for winter. Ducks and geese are scattered every where it seems. So much for my mid-winter inland waterfowl census. They are not concentrated to their normal winter "open holes" so I'm going to gamble and put it off until at least some snow or ice arrives. So much for check duck nesting boxes as well. This may be the first time in over 60 years that Fish and Game staff may NOT be able to check them. I'm thinking global warming IS connected!
