New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

Is it now winter? Yes, today and NO tomorrow it seems. Yes, we just had a brutally cold, I think ten-day stretch, of some pretty cold wind and low teens temperatures. And just a month ago we had some near zero temperatures for a few days. But really a near snowless winter so far. 

 

And here we are again with just a dusting of snow. Maybe an inch and a half fell yesterday on to a most bare ground, as it has been most of this winter so far. And could this be the second year in a row that not a single snowmachines has passed by my house. I have lived here going on a half century now and last winter was the first in my memory of a complete lack of snowmobile traffic past my house. Historically Trail Number 15 goes by the front of my house and at one time extended from the Massachusetts border to Canada. I don't think that's the case anymore. But Bear Brook State Park with ten thousand acres and miles of trails used to bring snow machines past my house as well. Now none. How sad. We have a local snowmobile club that still maintains the trails and the signs went up by them to mark the trail a couple months ago. And I just watched a piece on the news that basically snowmachine trails over most of New Hampshire remain unusable this winter going into mid-January. How sad. 

 

Luckily the stretches of winter we have had have been enough this winter to provide ice earlier, far earlier, than last winter. Nice to have ice. Though I have been slow to get on ice fishing this winter. We are just about at the peak of when ice keeps forming in New Hampshire. By late January the sun is a bit higher and really a lot stronger, so it becomes more difficult to make ice, especially in a year like this with mostly bare ground for much of the winter. Oh, the afternoon sun warms the bare earth enough so even the melting on those days sends warmer waters into our lakes and ponds reducing the likelihood of ice forming. The SUN rules by late January. And, as often as not, these last few years here in Central New Hampshire our winter storms might just as likely be rain now. 

 

Funny, I grew up in Londonderry. My father worked for Eastern Airline in Logan and commuted to work. He often spoke of the rain/snow line many winter being around the Stateline. Hit the New Hampshire border and the ground was white for weeks longer than south of the border. Then, over my life, I watched the snow/no snow line march op the state. For a while it was Manchester for the line. Even this winter as I traveled south from Epsom the lawns were bare south of Manchester, but snow covered by Hooksett. And really Hooksett was the line for a few years. It has since mostly moved to the Lakes region. Same for ice. Last winter there really was NO safe ice to fish on Lake Winnipesaukee  on the south side, but go around to the North Side, and you had some safe ice. So maybe the snow/No snow line is a thing of the past. Heck this winter, as I just mentioned, there is hardly any snow ANYWHERE in NH. SO, where is the snow/No snow line to be placed this winter? Does an inch and a half of snow count. I think not. So, we are really having a None-winter winter so far. But it's still January and maybe winter is just late to arrive. But Old Man Sol will be making it harder for winter to stay even if it does arrive late this year. I think this winter's dance is more like a square dance where you weave into partner then slide away. No Winter Waltz this year. 

 

I do have some winter birds. Last week I set looking out at my freshly filled bird feeders and the grains cast on my back lawn. I decided to try to identify every bird for a half hour of watching. Now all summer long I use my Merlin app. to listen for birds about and some mornings in my walk to the paper box and back a couple hundred feet I may get eight or even ten birds calling. I pretty much am listening every day for the birds about. So, I was surprised, since I have not been using my Merlin app this winter, that during my short watch I counted nearly a dozen species. Wow. They were blue jay, blue birds, tit mice, juncos, white throated sparrow, chickadee, cardinals, red polls (which I have not seen here for a while, downy woodpecker, red breasted woodpecker, mourning doves and likely a song sparrow that didn't turn around for me to see the black dot on its breast. 

 

Get outside. Be Wild. Live Life on the Wild Side of NH.