New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

Spring waits for no one

Saturday 04/26/2014

Spring is sizzling by despite some cool days. The sun driven daylight and warming earth has sent the spring peepers and wood frogs into a tizzy it seems. How I love to soak in the sounds of spring. I can slide my car right up next to a pool booming with frogs right near the Epsom traffic circle. I'll soon take a hike into Bear Brook Park where a wetland will have a deafening chorus of peepers to wallow in for a while. I've seen turtles and snakes to boot. It looks like the late night rains have swept the spotted salamanders into the vernal pools while I slept. Maybe I'll catch them on the return trip out next rain storm at night. There is just so much to see and hear this time of year. Millions upon millions of baby frogs will be hatching over the next few weeks to add a soup of life to all the little wetlands that dimple our forests.

Not to be outdone no doubt our wild turkeys and ducks are dropping baskets of eggs on the forest floor or some hollow tree to give a burst of additional life in a month or so. May is baby duck and turkey month. Plus most of the songbirds will be nested up by mid month with their young to be added to the forest fauna. What an exciting time to be alive in NH and ready to glean all that there is to see, hear and smell.

And lets not forget taste as well. Fiddlehead ferns will be popping out of the ground within a week. And I'm due to get some ground tilled and at least a row of peas and potatoes in within the next week. And fish to be caught, and sun to be captured as well. Oh life is good.