New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff
First clouds if Hurricane Earl sweep overhead at 9:00 am. And playing with bats.
Friday 09/03/2010
Looks like we are just dodging hurricane Earl. The skies were nearly clear early this morning but by 9 I could see high overhead clouds sweeping in from the south. The most outer cloud bands of Earl though the hurricane is still off the Carolinas this morning. Looks like we may get some much needed rain and little else. Yesterday I headed to the coast with friend Jean to check his lobster traps.We did pull the half dozen of his traps out in the open sea back behind the jetty at Odiorne Point just to be on the safe side. Jean double checked his sump pump in the boat at the mooring before we came home.
Today we have our granddaughter Erin with us from a sleep over last night and for much of the day today. Oh, you can learn and appreciate so much more of life with a four year old at hand. And Erin certainly is the biologist in the making in the family. When she first got up she wanted to go outside to catch a cricket to toss into the giant spider web on my deck. But even before we could do that, she found a live dragon fly on the deck and immediately called out for a jar. A few minutes later we headed out to the paper box. She handed me the paper and declared that she just found a spider living in the mail box and wanted me to come check it out. From there a glance at the ground a few feet away revealed the find of the day. A big dead gray squirrel! Which she quickly picked up and headed for the house with. Luckily a fresh kill and not bloody at all. She has spent much of the day playing with the dead squirrel. Then we found the leopard frogs hopping on the lawn. She found a container for them for a while until she let them go. She sure wants to take the squirrel home "To show my mommy." I did inform her we would have to sneak it into my wife car for the trip home.
The other warm night, like the 7th in a row, I was down to see my life long friend Rick down on the Suncook River. What a grand warm night to enjoy the river. While we didn't swim we did wade the shallows off and on. As dusk approached a couple of bats appeared overhead as usual. The river there is wide and nothing much more than a huge sand dune with just a trickle of water along the western edge. And so we played with the bats for a bit. Now bats are one of the few wild animals that I know that you can actually interact with. I learned that you could play with bats as a six year old while living in Easton Maine. Simply toss a rock, or stick, or tennis ball as was the case the other night into the air as the bat passes over. They instinctively chase the thrown object as it falls.And they will do it time and time again right over your head.\
We have had another heat wave the last few days topping out in the mid 90's and setting records each day. The local farmer started chopping his corn yesterday. Much of it is not more than five feet tall, half the usual height. Lawns and fields are still brown all around. And the farmer has only cut the hay by my house only twice this year, half the norm. What a tough year for farmers and some wildlife with nearly a complete lack of wild berries around here. I sure hope we get the tail end of a couple more hurricanes. Mother Earth sure needs a drink around these parts.
