New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

A goose in hand and a deer a day the last week or more.

Thursday 06/29/2006

The NH Fish and Game "Goose Crew" wrapped up the goose banding season except for the annual trip to Coos County for a day. Waterfowl biologist Ed Robinson is keeping his last 100 bands for the north country trip next week. I think Ed announced this morning that over 500 geese have been banded so far and we added another 76 today. I"ve been at it most of the days again this year. I've pretty much been a part of the goose crew since day one back in 1991. We have had a couple of staff from APHIS Wildlife Services from Concord each day who have been a great help this year. The Fish and Game Department is working with Wildlife Services to test various birds for Avian Influenza. The goal was to check 350 geese this year. While we certainly hope and expect NOT to find it this year, we will all gain the experience needed to properly test for it when it arrives. All the turkeys and terns tested so far were negative as expected. NH is one of the first states to begin this aggressive sampling and biologists are clearly at the front of the team searching for the disease nation wide. The NH Fish and Game biologists just happen to be leading the whole country right now.

At each site we drive the geese into a pond then erect a small coral at one end and use fish netting to make a huge V-shape funnel to guide them into the coral. I am always one of the canoe drivers to move the birds down the pond and into the waiting funnel. Seldom do we miss any, even though many can still fly. They just go with the crowd into the coral which we also have a top on. Occasionally some flyers will balk and get away. Some times have the geese fly away when we release them. Many times we catch family groups. We always build a second coral and keep them all together and release them all at once so the young don't get separated. I'm also the "bander" placing the aluminum ring just so on the goose's leg.

At our last stop today in Hillsboro we were waiting for biologist Ted Walski to locate the several broods he had spotted on one of the several ponds scattered on this particular 2,000 acre parcel. So I walked out into a field hoping to spot a snake. It looked like great smooth green snake habitat or even a ribbon snake near one of the ponds. I spotted a huge boulder near the pond with some debris, including some old tar roof shingles piled on top. At a glance I knew I would find a snake there. Sure enough in just a couple minutes I had caught two red bellied snakes. Adding a couple of these little snakes to our tally of 76 geese was just frosting on the cake for me.

Deer, deer lots of deer spotted by me the last couple of weeks. I have lived in NH since 1962. I am sure there has never been a time that I have seen on average a deer a day, during mid day mind you. Not cruising and looking for them at dawn or dusk, but while traveling during the day, especially while banding. Although my sample size is small, just me, my sense is we have a whole lot more deer around this summer compared to usual. The non-winter we had is probably a significant factor. I doubt the heavy rains have affected the fawning. If any thing it has made it harder for the coyotes to find and eat the fawns. I'm thinking we are in for a real great deer season.

While I hadn't heard the tree frogs or any toads calling here at my house for a week or so, a few were back at it Tuesday night. I didn't hear much for green frogs this year though. Any rain night I drive with intensity to watch for and hopefully miss the frogs in the road. I'm always amazed how no one else in the car whether riding or driving sees all the frogs in the road. In fact I can ID most of them as I drive along. For instance tree frogs have a very weird hop. It is rather box-shaped. They seem to leap straight up, move horizontal to the ground, then drop straight back down. They have a very different hop. Toads of coarse hop very short distances and it is more like a waddle-hop. Any ways, most frogs can be identified by their hop as well. So slow down and learn them too. Better yet, don't drive at night if it is raining.