Phenological Phacts and Photos with Carl Martland / November 2024

2024 Lake District Colors

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

The Lake District

The Lake District in northwest England is one of the most picturesque regions that we have ever seen. About the same size as Mount Desert Island, it shares that region’s geological history, as some prehistoric eruption left a dozen or so large lakes filling the valleys (known in England as “dales”) between long, rocky ridges and summits (known as “fells”). Like Mount Desert Island, the Lake District is a mixture of national park, other conservation areas, small villages, and a couple of larger urban areas. Unlike Mount Desert, it has a landscape dominated by fields and mountainsides dominated by heather and ferns (known as “bracken”). Why? Because the Lake District retains a vast number of sheep who work tirelessly to prevent trees and shrubs from dominating as the mountainsides as they do both in Mount Desert and here in the North Country. As you ride or walk through the Lake District, the typical views are as shown above – rolling lowlands with a mixture of fields and forests and open hillsides liberally laced with small streams, stone walls, and rocky outcroppings. In the fall, while there is some color in the forests, what attracts your attention are deep reds and bronzes of the bracken that carpets the hillsides.

October 19, 2024.  The view from Easedale Tarn toward the ridge rising above Grasmere. Some of the white spots barely visible in this photo are the sheep busy working to keep the slopes clear of trees.

Grasmere

The village of Grasmere is located by a mile-long lake with the same name. The village is famous for its association with the 19th century poet William Wordsworth, who lived there for most of his life. Its pubs, restaurants, parks, stone buildings, stone walls, shops, quaint curving streets, excellent bus service, and location within the mountains at the side of a lake make it a Mecca for tourists, especially those interested in walking and hiking. In the fall, the streets are alive with the colors of the many exotic trees that, of necessity, are crammed into the tight spaces of a village defined by stone walls and closely-spaced stone buildings. Cyclists, pedestrians, autos, and double-decker buses share the narrow streets, and everyone enjoys the views and the colors. The following three pictures were taken as we walked from our cottage about a quarter mile toward the center of town.   

An autumn walk through Grasmere:

· A brilliant shrub overflowing with lacy leaves barely fits between a stonewall and the stone cottage where we stayed (top left).

· An oak tree shows some yellows and orange (top right).

· A garden shop has a variety of colorful shrubs along a path that serves as a sidewalk in the center of Grasmere (bottom).

From the center of town, it is a two-mile walk to Easedale Tarn, a lovely lake nestled between cliffs and ridges that affords a view toward the town and the fells.  

October 19, 2024.  The view toward Grasmere from the top of the trail to Easedale Tarn. 

Side Trips from Grasmere

About ten years ago, we gave up renting cars in England. Not only was it expensive to do so, but it was also difficult to find parking places, and the narrow roads in the Lake District are best left to the professionals. We take trains to get to Windermere, the largest town in the Lake District, and from there we take a bust to Grasmere. The first few days, we’re happy to walk the colorful streets of the village and the pleasant pathways along the Rothay River and the lake. We also have a choice of many other days out, using the frequent bus service to reach nearby villages and trailheads (and pubs). Eventually we’re ready to tackle more adventurous treks, like the trail to Easedale Tarn. 

Holehird Gardens

Holehird Gardens is one of our favorite destinations in the Lake District. The gardens which are part of an old estate, include landscaped terraces, rock gardens, and an enclosed formal garden with extraordinary flowers and a greenhouse featuring orchids. To reach the gardens, we first take the bus from Grasmere to Windermere, enjoying the view from the upper deck across the meadows and lakes toward the hillsides. The two-mile walk to Holehird Gardens begins right across the street from the bus station, and it soon passes through woods and farmyards. The final stretch of this walk takes us across fields with cows and sheep, between a farmhouse and its outbuildings, and down another field to a gate that brings us to the top of the Gardens. 

October 14, 2024.  Walking through farm fields with views to the heathered hillsides as we approached Holehird Gardens.

Even in late October, the flowers and shrubs in this wonderful garden are spectacular! 

A bench at the top of the terraced gardens offered a view displaying all the colors of the rainbow!

Brilliant asters reminded us of the ones crowding trails and roadsides in the North Country.

After spending an hour or two in the garden, we walk down the hillside on a couple of narrow roads to catch the bus back to Grasmere.

Coffin Road

A couple of hundred years ago, in rural England, devout families insisted on burying their loved ones in a consecrated cemetery, such as the one by St. Oswald’s Church in Grasmere. As you would have expected had you ever contemplated the situation facing the bereaved families of that era, there could be considerable difficulty in moving the deceased to the nearest road that could be traveled by a proper horse-drawn hearse. The problem was similar to the problem facing a hiker who breaks a leg high on the side of Franconia Ridge. The solution then, as now, was to have a bunch of volunteers carry the unfortunate individual down the trail in order to reach modern transportation. 

Since people died much more regularly in remote areas at the time of Longfellow and Dickens than die today above tree-line, our forebears worked out a way to assist the pall bearers. Trails leading from remote areas to places like Grasmere were enhanced by ensuring that large, flat-topped stones were located every hundred yards or so along the way so that the coffin could be placed on them while the bearers took a rest (and perhaps a swig or two of one of the predecessors of the real ales now on tap in the nearby pubs).  One of these trails, now called the Coffin Road, provides us a quiet walk along a hillside above Grasmere and Rydal Water. As we follow this trail, we take plenty of time to enjoy the views from the conveniently placed coffin stones.

October 21, 2024.  We enjoyed this view of the hills from while sitting on a convenient resting place along the Coffin Road.

Eventually, we reach the end of the trail at a leading down to Rydal Hall, a tea shop, a couple of stone residences, a highly picturesque waterfall, and, most importantly, the Badger Bar, one of our favorite Lake District pubs. First, we take a short walk along a rushing stream and through the edge of the gardens in front of the Hall.  

October 21, 2024.  The wealthy owner of Rydal Hall had this little hut placed at the best point to view the waterfall found below the end of the Coffin Road.

We then head to the Badger Bar.  After a pint plus a lamb chop or a steak & ale pie, we’re ready to catch the bus back to Grasmere and enjoy the short walk to our cottage.

Rain & Clouds

If you have ever spent a few days in the countryside in Merry Old England, you will certainly have witnessed scenes of hillsides, stone buildings, and little streams such as we enjoyed last month. Unless you were extremely lucky, you would also have noticed the clouds, fog, drizzle, light rain and downpours that make the countryside so perfect for gardeners, tourists and sheep. Thus, in the essay about Lake District colors, it would be remiss not to mention that portions of many and perhaps most days are too cloudy and wet for optimal viewing of autumnal colors. That doesn’t necessarily diminish the beauty of the landscape, however, as cloudy, moist conditions can bring a brooding majesty to the hills seen dimly across one of the lakes or fields.

October 22, 2024. The view from the Keswick across Derwent Water toward the Jaws of Borrowdale, was once described by one of the Lake poets as “the third best view in Europe.”  We’re not sure about such high praise, but the view is certainly magnificent, especially in the mood created by the glowering clouds and distant mists.

Phenological Phacts and Photos with Carl Martland / October 2024

Goldenrods

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

A Very Common Wildflower

By this time of the year, goldenrod and asters have overwhelmed our roadsides and meadows with their massed legions of colorful plants. They aren’t the only flowers blooming in the fall, because, if you know where to look, you may find such interesting plants as bottle gentians and white turtleheads. However, you don’t have to search for goldenrod or asters, because they cannot be avoided if you take a walk or drive through the countryside.

Goldenrods are easily recognized from a distance, because the hundreds of tiny yellow flowers bunched together along the ends of the tall stems of dozens of individual plants create a blur of color similar to what might be found in an impressionist painting.  You only see the individual flowers if you zoom into your photo.  Someone going out for a walk will probably just walk on by while thinking, “Wow, that’s a lot of goldenrod.”  Few will stop to peer into the blossoms. Few still will try to figure which species they are looking at. I took the next photo to show the color; I didn’t care what species it was, because I was content with documenting “what a wonderful display of goldenrod!”

September 2, 2005:  I never identified the species growing her in such abundance on our dam. I just loved the colors and the view of the flowers blowing in the wind.  

Identifying Wildflowers

Identifying wildflowers is not an easy task. Sure, we can easily pick out violets in the spring, buttercups in the summer, and goldenrod and asters in the fall.  However, these are merely the family names, and you will find 44 species of asters, 39 of violets, 29 of goldenrod, and 21 of clover in my guidebook (Roger Tory Peterson and Margaret McKenny, “A Field Guide to Wildflowers of Northeastern and North-central North America,” 1968 edition). Trying to differentiate among the many nearly identical plants can be a laborious process!

Like most people who spend time outdoors, I have long been interested in wildflowers.  However, I didn’t start working on a life list until I was 34 years old.  In 1980, I first began to add notes to my guidebook about where and when I had seen wildflowers. By the end of my first year, I had identified 81 species, and after six years, I had found and identified 440 species, i.e. about a third of the species that were listed in the guidebook. That was the last time that I updated my life list, perhaps because I developed other interests, perhaps because my hiking companions (son and wife) were less willing to stand around while I consulted the guidebook, or perhaps because I figured that I had pretty much identified almost all the species that were likely to be found along my usual haunts.

A Very Big Family

It was just by chance, that I decided one early September day in 2005 to take a closer look at the goldenrod that was so abundant around the pond. Even a casual glance showed that there were multiple species, because some were tall, with flowers along multiple stalks at the top of very tall plants, while others were shorter and narrower. So, with time to kill, I set out to find how many species were growing in the Upper Meadow or by the pond. To my surprise, I found ten different species.

September 4, 2005, 68 degrees, partly sunny. At 9:30 am, a flock of 25 geese flew high overhead. I decided to try to identify the various species of goldenrod that were blooming on the dam or by the pond. I took photos and identified ten species using my field guide:

• On dam

  o   Blue stemmed goldenrod

  o   Late goldenrod

  o   Bog goldenrod

  o   Tall goldenrod

  o   Rough-stemmed goldenrod

• By pond

  o   Early goldenrod

  o   Lance leaved goldenrod

  o   Showy goldenrod

  o   Erect goldenrod (by bench)

  o   Unidentified goldenrod (shaped like Early Goldenrod, but with parallel veins, short 7-10 rays, and smooth purple stem with white bloom)

It is clear that I just ran out of gas on that day nearly 20 years ago, because I documented the appearance of the last species that I found, but didn’t take the time to identify it.  Today, while working on this essay, I went to the same 1968 Field Guide and found that the drawing of Late Goldenrod looks almost exactly like the drawing of Early Goldenrod, except that its leaves are parallel-veined rather than feather-veined. The description of Late Goldenrod’s stem is almost identical to my description of that of the mystery plant: “Note the smooth pale green or purplish stem, often covered with a whitish bloom.” In short, if I had spent another few minutes back on that day back in 2005, I would easily have identified this tenth species as Late Goldenrod.

I apparently learned two things on that fine September day: first, there were a remarkable number of goldenrod species growing right by the pond and second, it takes a remarkable time and effort to figure out which of the 29 species of goldenrod matches a plant that you are looking at! I never again attempted a Goldenrod survey, although I am tempted to go out back as soon as the rain stops to see how many are in bloom right now!

Identifying Goldenrods

The first step in identifying goldenrods is to look at the shape of the plant, which my field guide separates into five groups:

1. Plumelike, graceful:  the flowers form a triangular cluster at the top of a tall stem.

2. Elm-branched:  the flowers are on various stalks that droop to the sides at the top of a tall stem.

3. Clublike, showy:  the flowers are dense and close to the stem.

4. Wandlike, slender:  similar to the clublike, but the flowers are even closer to the stem.

5. Flat-topped:  the flowers are at the top of multiple stalks that emerge from the top of the stem.

Within each group, further identification requires a close look at the color and texture of the stem, the shape and texture of the leaves, the size and number of rays of the flowers, and the density and size of the leaves (especially at the base of the stem). In short, identification is at best time-consuming, and at worst a wearisome task. No wonder I last attempted this twenty years ago and now wish that perhaps I had chosen a different topic for this month!

In any case, I have done the work, and I am able to show some photos of the species that I have found right here in the Back 4. I am not an expert, and the photos don’t necessarily provide the necessary detail, so I won’t guarantee that my identifications are correct.  However, these photos certainly illustrate the variety of shapes of commonly found species of goldenrod. Perhaps you will be motivated to take a closer look at some of the goldenrod that you happen to come across. 

Early Goldenrod may be plume-shaped or elm-shaped, and it has large, slightly toothed leaves.   

September 4, 2005. Early goldenrod growing on the dam. 

Late Goldenrod is similar to Early Goldenrod, but its leaves are parallel-veined and narrower. 

Late Goldenrod, by our Pond, August 27, 2005.  Note that there are three plants; the one on the left is just coming into bloom.

Canada Goldenrod is another plume-like species.  Its narrow, parallel-veined leaves are longer toward the base of the stalk.

Canada Goldenrod, by the Pond, August 24, 2016

Stout Goldenrod is one of the clublike species with showy flowers.  I have included one photo from the Back 4 and one that I took recently in Acadia National Park to suggest that this species is very attractive to bees.

Stout Goldenrod: Left: Long Pond, Acadia National Park (September 17, 2024) Right: By the Pond (September 9, 2017).

Blue-stemmed Goldenrod had the slender, wand-like shape. It is only 1-3 feet high, and it has a purplish stem. Notice the very large leaves at its base. 

Blue-stemmed Goldenrod, on the dam, September 4, 2005.

The final photo shows one of the few species that is easy to identify. Seaside Goldenrod, named for its usual habitat, tends not to grow in the multi-specied conglomerations that make it difficult to isolate a single plant, let alone identify it. We found many of the Seaside Goldenrods growing singly or in pairs along the coastal trails of Acadia National Park, including this one that seems to be growing out of the rocks.  The leaves are smooth, almost fleshy, and completely different from any of the other species.  To see this species growing alone or with a few pals while you’re listening to the waves crashing on the rocks is pretty much all you need to identify it.  We found this one growing in a rocky crevice within a few yards of where we sat enjoying the waves crashing on the ledges.

Seaside Goldenrod, Acadia National Park, September 18, 2024

Phenological Phacts and Photos with Carl Martland / September 2024

The Quick and the Dead

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

Lurking in the Reeds

Do you see the frog?  Look closely.  There it is, right in the center of the photo!  It’s sitting motionless on some fallen cattail leaves at the edge of the pond. This is no surprise. Frogs are always sitting motionless on cattail leaves at the edge of the pond. I’ve often watched them for ten minutes or more, just waiting for them to make the smallest motion to indicate that they are alive.

July 29, 2016, noon, 80 degrees, mostly cloudy. The pond was quiet today, broken only occasionally by the splash of a trout.  A bullfrog sat in the exact same spot by the dock where I took a picture of him or one of his pals yesterday.  A pair of small green frogs squatted with just their noses out of the water, one of them hiding under a leaf.  A half hour went by before a frog on the other side of the pond broke the silence.

What are they doing sitting there, so motionless, for so long?  Well, they might be resting, thinking about life in the pond, or waiting to join in a chorus along with the many other frogs sitting quietly along the edge of the pond. But sometimes they are like hunters in their deer stands, silently waiting for an opportunity to strike. 

How to Catch a Damselfly

More than 25 years ago, during my second summer in Sugar Hill, I witnessed a frog catching and eating a damselfly, an unusual and unexpected experience that I described in detail in my journal.

August 2-3, 1998.  Blue damsel flies were again emerging from the pond.  About fifty at the point and one or two hundred nearby along the shore. I watched a small green frog hunting them.  He sat low in the water with his head out, waiting for a bluet to alight within range, which is only about two inches. The bluets characteristically sit on goldenrod or any other exposed vegetation for at least ten or twenty seconds, so if they land on anything within the frog’s range, they are goners. The frog sees the bluet land, waits a second, twitching slightly in anticipation, then springs very quickly and grabs the damsel fly in its mouth! The tip of the bluet’s abdomen is visible sticking out the side of the frog’s mouth as it chews for a while, and then it gulps that bit down as well. I saw this once yesterday after watching for 45 minutes and once again today after watching for a half hour. The frogs moved every 5 minutes or so until they got a strike. They didn’t seem to know to locate head-on to a suitable landing perch.

Back then, before I had a digital camera, I would add illustrations to my journals. This one shows the frog sitting with its nose out of the water at the moment when the bluet landed on a bit of pondweed sticking out just within reach.

I didn’t know then how lucky I was to witness this activity, because I didn’t witness another successful strike that summer or in any summer for the next 25 years! I have several times seen a frog leap up in unsuccessful attempts to catch a meadowhawk bouncing up and down as it laid eggs on the surface of the pond right next to where the frog was waiting. But I have never again seen a frog leap out to catch any damselfly or dragonfly in its mouth. At least, not until last week.

Luck Plays a Very Important Role

Now that I have learned to love dragonflies, damselflies, and butterflies, I seldom find myself sitting still for a half hour waiting for a frog to move.  Almost every sunny day, I spend an hour or so walking around the pond and the Upper Meadow hoping to get photos of these insects that are so much more colorful and interesting than the stolid, drab frogs.   

One day last week, I was sitting as usual on the dock at our end of the pond watching the damselflies and dragonflies flying about the opening in the cattails, defending their territories, looking for mates, forming wheels, and sometimes resting briefly on one of the cattails. A Canada darner stopped by every minute or two, hovered for a few seconds, shifted position, and hovered again before flying off to the next opening in the cattails.  Canada darners almost never land anywhere, and they are even less likely to land anywhere near the pond.  Since they are unwilling to pose, if I want a photo, I have to focus on an area where one has hovered and wait to take the picture if it returns. This is a difficult task, but I sometimes accept the challenge. Well, last week, I took a dozen or so photos, almost all of which were either out of focus or taken just after the dragonfly sped off.  The best one turned out to be one that I accidentally took of the insect’s shadow.  Except for what happed very soon thereafter, I would have shrugged and deleted this photo along with all of the other failures.    

August 23, 2024, 4:45pm.  I tried to get a good photo of a Canada darner that hovered over our end of the pond, but the best photo turned out to be of its shadow.

Just after I took this photo, another Canada darner flew in, a member of the opposite sex.  Apparently this is what they both had been searching for. Because they immediately paired up, prepared to form a wheel, and dropped down to a romantic spot at the edge of the cattails.  Unluckily for them, they did not see the frog sitting there, and they landed almost on the lucky frog’s nose.  The frog immediately grabbed one of the dragonflies, while the other one escaped.  Luckily for me, I already had the camera in hand, ready to document what happened next. 

August 23, 2024, 4:47pm.  The pair of Canada darners landed right in front of the frog that had been waiting there, motionless and barely visible, probably for many minutes.  The wings of the dragonfly and the eyes of the frog are visible in the center of this photo.

How to Consume a Dragonfly

In my 1998 drawing of the bluet that became a frog’s lunch, you will notice that its wings are folded in next to its abdomen.  The frog grabbed the insect just as we could bite into the center of a large pretzel stick - the insect’s wings posed no problems.  Dragonflies are a different matter, as their wings are larger, stiffer, and extended.  The frog has to twist and turn the darner in order to get it into its mouth, just as we used to twist and turn one of the large regular pretzels that we purchased from a vendor in the Public Garden or the Boston Garden.

August 23, 2024, 4:48 pm.  The frog has the darner’s head and thorax in its mouth, but the insect’s abdomen is not headed straight it, and the wings are a problem.    

It took the frog a couple of minutes to get the darner lined up so that it could be swallowed.  The action had slowed down, so I was able to take videos of the process.  For a few seconds, the dragonfly twitched its abdomen, in a futile effort to escape.  The frog just held on at first, but soon began pulling the wings out of its mouth.

August 23, 2024, 4:49.  The frog pulls one of the darner’s wings out of its mouth. 

Once the frog got rid of the wings, it manipulated the darner so that it could be swallowed.

August 23, 2024, 4:50.  The frog pulls the darner out a bit in order to line it up better. 

Once the darner was lined up properly, the frog sucked it in slowly, and the tip of the darner’s abdomen eventually disappeared into the frog’s mouth.  Once it had the darner entirely within its mouth, the frog sat with its head up for several minutes, its throat clearly pushing in and out more than fifty times as it worked on its meal.

August 23, 2024, 4:52.  The frog chews for a couple of minutes, its throat pushing in and out again, again, and again. 

I took two minutes of videos as the frog worked on its meal.  Finally, and quite suddenly, the frog lifted its head straight up and it swallowed whatever was left of the dragonfly. 

August 23, 2024, 4:54.  The frog suddenly throws its head straight up and swallows the remains of its meal.   

After six minutes of dining, what did the frog do?  Why, it shifted its position by a few inches and went back to sitting there, motionless and silent.  We don’t know if it was hoping for another course for its evening meal or simply enjoying the happy life of a frog.     

August 23, 2024, 4:59.  Finished with its meal, the frog moves a few inches and resumes its normal position.

Phenological Phacts and Photos with Carl Martland / August 2024

Skippers: Hiding in Plain Sight

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

Skippers? What’s a Skipper?

That’s a fair question, one that is easily answered. Skippers are butterflies. In fact, the skipper family includes nearly three hundred U.S species and several thousand more that are found all over the world. If you look in the Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Butterflies, you will find that a quarter of the 39 color plates are devoted to skippers. The largest are nearly the size of a monarch, a half dozen have tails much more dramatic than those we admire on swallowtails, and dozens of them have fascinating wing patterns.

So why haven’t you heard of them? Why don’t you ever walk through a field and hear something like “Oh, there’s one of those cute skippers sipping nectar from those nice yellow flowers?” If you look more closely at Peterson’s Field Guide, you will quickly discover that all but one of the large, long-tailed skippers are tropical butterflies that only range as far north as southern Florida or Texas. The only exception is the Silver Spotted Skipper that I frequently see on Joe Pye Weed and other large flowering plants in the Upper Meadow. This skipper can have a wingspan of well over two inches, and the prominent white spots on the underside of its wings make any curious observer rush to their guidebook to discover the name of this fascinating, well-named insect.

August 2, 2019. Two silver spotted skippers feeding on the many-blossomed Joe Pye Weed that covers the little hill beside the Pond.

Unfortunately for those of us in the North Country, none of our other common skippers challenge the silver-spotted in terms of both size and beauty. Most of them are too small and too drab to notice. The only thing that might catch your attention is the way they hold their wings when resting or feeding on a flower. Their forewings are spread out like those of other butterflies, but their hindwings are held straight up, as shown below in one of my first photos of a small skipper.

August 3, 2006. The rear wings of this skipper are almost vertical, which is a characteristic of the small skippers in our area.

I took this photo in 2006, but it was only last week that I decided that it was probably a female Dun Skipper, as its white spots are a little smaller than those on the dark wings of the female Broken-Dash or the female Little Glassywing. I am not the only one who has found it difficult to distinguish among the females of these three species, as my guidebook refers to them as the “three black witches.”

I claim to be a careful observer of butterflies and dragonflies, but it wasn’t until my seventh summer in Sugar Hill that I even mentioned skippers in my journal, and it was another summer before I managed to identify one of them as an Indian Skipper. It turns out that Indian skippers are commonly found on trails through fields in and around Sugar Hill. For many years, I was content to mention just three types of skippers in my journals: Silver-Spotted Skippers, Indian Skippers, and just plain skippers.  

July 11, 2004 75 degrees, partly cloudy, beautiful. When I took a walk down Georgeville Road, I found plenty of butterflies: comma, fritillary, wood satyr, wood nymph and an orange skipper that I later identified as an Indian skipper.  

It wasn’t until 2016 that I took the photo that ignited my interest in small skippers. That July, I was walking along the Ammonoosuc Rail Trail in Lisbon, just below the old pin-truss railroad bridge, when I noticed an unusual skipper. Instead of the red/orange tones of the Indian Skipper or the plain drab brown of the three witches, its wings had large yellow spots. Well, I happily spent a few minutes working to get a good photo of this interesting creature. As soon as I returned home, I went to my Peterson Field Guide, and I soon found that the orange pattern on this butterfly’s wings was enough to identify it as a Hoary Edge. According to my 1998 field guide, this butterfly’s range extended from northern Florida to central New England, but did not include the North Country. However, the orange pattern on its wings is unmistakable. So, either this Hoary Edge was an adventurous tourist or the range of this species is now above the notches. I was naturally quite excited to get a photo of a creature that was supposed to be found only with the flatlanders.

June 14, 2016. A Hoary Edge posed next to the Ammonoosuc Rail Trail in Lisbon.

Identifying a Hoary Edge found north of its purported range encouraged me to start taking the skippers seriously. Instead of ignoring the inconspicuous brownish butterflies often seen sitting on clover or ferns or leaves as I walk through the fields of Sugar Hill, I began to look for photo opportunities.

July 2, 2019. I was sitting at Rufus’s Cabin on Bronson Hill when I noticed a couple of skippers just beyond the mown area in front of my bench. Within a few minutes, I had taken several photos, and I realized that there were multiple species of skippers flitting all around the edge of this field.

One of the skippers that I photographed that day had a strangely shaped yellow pattern on its wings that clearly identified it as a Peck’s Skipper.

Since then, I have photographed more than a dozen other species of small skippers in or around Sugar Hill. However, getting the photos of different species is sometimes easier than identifying them, since many species seem to have nearly identical twins. It takes a long time to comb through the ten dozen or so photos in the field guide trying to match the smallest details of a photo to the key characteristics of the candidate species.

For example, several species have colors and wing patterns similar to those of the Indian Skipper, and I have undoubtedly overlooked many a colorful skipper because I thought that it was just another Indian Skipper. The Long Dash is almost identical to the Indian Skipper, but the black stripe on its wings is a little different. The Least Skipper has the same orange and brown colors, but lacks the black stripes. These differences are much easier to see in these larger-than life photographs than when you’re ten feet away watching them flit from one leaf or blossom to another!

July 9, 2021. A Long Dash

August 27, 2019. A least skipper on a stalk of grass on our dam.

And then there are the look-alike species, such as the Duskywings, whose splotchy wings make them difficult to differentiate even if you do have a good photo. I think I have correctly identified the two species pictured below, but I could be wrong. If you have a field guide, perhaps you can correct me or assure me that I am correct.

August 8, 2021. A Dreamy Duskywing on daisies in the Upper Meadow.

September 4, 2023. A Juvenal’s Duskywing on daisies in the Upper Meadow.

Better yet, rather than wasting too much time trying to identify the dismal duskywings and black witches, you could simply keep an eye out for the small skippers with dramatic colors, such as this Delaware Skipper that visited Sugar Hill during the Covid shutdown.

July 16, 2020. Unless you look closely, this Delaware skipper appears to have only two wings. This is one of the few small skippers whose wing patterns may attract your attention!

Phenological Phacts and Photos with Carl Martland / July 2024

The Usual Suspects

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

The Usual Suspects

When I go out to the pond in mid-summer, I always hope to see something spectacular, such as a great blue heron stalking along the shore picking off young frogs too excited about graduating from tadpole school to be wary of predators.  Or perhaps a snapping turtle struggling through the lupine toward the water, like the one I saw about ten years ago.  Or maybe an exciting new butterfly or an otter.  Though I approach slowly, camera at the ready, I am well aware that there most likely will be no heron, no turtle, no unusual butterfly, and no otter to be seen.   But that’s OK, because I am sure to find the usual suspects:  the mid-summer dragonflies defending their territories in the openings amid the reeds and patrolling the shoreline along the dam.  If you want to impress your 4th of July visitors with your knowledge of dragonflies, keep reading, and you too can speak of “the usual suspects.”

Posers (Corporals and Whitefaces)

Some dragonflies spend all their time flying in and out of the reeds or out over the dam looking for food or a mate. Others may land on a reed or a leaf once in a while, but only stay for a few seconds. However, a few will actually spend a minute or more on their perch, fly off to chase an invader, and then return to the same or a nearby perch. At our pond, chalk-fronted corporals and two species of whitefaces are the most commonly seen and most easily identified.

The male red-waisted whitefaces has a white face, red spots on its thorax between its wings, and a mostly white abdomen. It is 1.4 inches long, and it defends an opening in the reeds, frequently landing on a reed and posing for photographs. (July 23, 2022)

The male chalk-fronted corporal has two stripes at the front of its abdomen and a mostly white abdomen. Superficially similar to the red-waisted whiteface, it has a dark face and, at 1.6 inches, it is larger. (July 9, 2022)  

Two other small dragonflies with white faces might also be seen at this time of the year. The frosted whiteface is nearly identical to the red-waisted except that it lacks the red coloring atop its thorax. The dot-tailed whiteface, in addition to its white face, has a dark abdomen with a conspicuous yellow spot, which makes it perhaps the most aptly named of all dragonflies.

A pair of dot-tailed whitfaces forms a wheel. The female touches the tip of her abdomen to a spot on the underside of the male’s thorax where he has placed a dollop of his sperm. (June 19, 2021)

Bright Eyes (Emeralds)

The photo used to introduce this essay depicts a dragonfly with large green eyes hovering over an opening in the reeds, which is a very common sight at our pond. I am proud of this photo, because it is one of the very few in which I have managed to focus (or almost focus) on one of these very common dragonflies as it hovers for a few seconds right in front of me as I sit in one of my favorite seats next to the pond. Its green eyes and clubbed tail readily identify this as one of the many species of “emerald” dragonflies.

If you see a mid-sized dragonfly with bright green eyes and a bulge at the tip of its abdomen, tell you friends “That’s an emerald dragonfly. I love its amazing eyes.” Don’t try to go any further, because the emeralds found in the North Country all look pretty much the same, and they all seem to spend their daylight hours flying in and out, hovering for several seconds, and then flying to another spot. In fact, it was several years before I finally managed to get good enough photos to identify the two species that are commonly seen here in early- to mid-summer.

The Racket-Tailed Emerald, which is 1.6 inches long, has a very large club that is only clearly visible on the rare occasions when it lands. (July 24, 2020)

The American Emerald is larger with a less conspicuous clubtail, but it looks pretty much the same as the racket-tailed when in flight. (July 24, 2022)

A close-up from the side is the best way to distinguish the racket-tailed from the American emerald, because the underside of one of the first segments of its abdomen is yellow. I don’t recommend spending any time trying to get such a photo, but if you do happen upon an emerald that has landed on a leaf, do try to get a photo that will show this spot.

This close-up shows the yellow spot on the underside of the abdomen that is a diagnostic characteristic for the racket-tailed emerald. (July 5, 2017)

Show Offs (Skimmers and Darners)

Now, I like to see any kind of dragonfly, but when I take friends and family out for a walk around the pond, I find that few if any of them are at all interested in the difference between the red-waisted whitefaces and the chalk-fronted corporals, nor do they spend any time trying to get a close-up photo highlighting the perfect yellow circle on the dot-tailed whiteface’s abdomen. What excites them are the large, colorful darners and skimmers.

Everyone knows the green darner, one of the most common, most beautiful, and most easily identified of all North American dragonflies. A quick glimpse of the familiar brilliant green thorax and blue abdomen of a green darner speeding along the shoreline will always be more interesting to them than any details about the life cycle of the corporals. The first green darner first shows up at the pond in May, one or two are flying over the pond on most summer days, and some will still be here at the end of August. The females, which lack the bright colors, show up later in May, and they apparently spend much of their time trying to avoid the continually cruising males. The only times that I see males taking a break from their patrolling are also just about the only times that I see the females, which is when the male is grasping the female by the back of her head as she lays here eggs in the pond.

A male holds a female green darner as she lays her eggs in our pond. She will lay on or two on one side of the reed, then lift her abdomen and drop it down to lay some on the other side. After a minute or two, they may fly off, still united, to another spot. (July 20, 2023)

The 12-spotted skimmer is less common, but even more spectacular. The name comes from the multiplicity of spots on its wings, which create a colorful blur when this dragonfly is in flight. Fortunately, for the casual visitor as well as for the photographer, this skimmer frequently perches on reeds or branches close to the pond. When we first saw one of these, my wife immediately called it the “D-Day dragonfly”, because the colorful patches on its wings match the spots painted on the gliders that landed in Normandy on that fateful day.

A 12-spotted skimmer in its customary perch at the edge of the pond. (July 13, 2019)

If you go to a small pond lined with reeds and wildflowers this month, you will likely see many or all of these “usual suspects.” If you are half as intrigued as I have been with dragonflies, your trip to the pond “could be the beginning of a wonderful friendship” with these delightful creatures!

Phenological Phacts and Photos with Carl Martland / June 2024

Summer Solstice

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

Summer Solstice

Does the summer solstice really mark the beginning of summer? What about Memorial Day, the last day of school, the first trip to the beach, the first cookout, the first sunny days in the 90s, or the family gathering on the 4th of July? Growing up as a kid in Rhode Island, the last day of school clearly marked the beginning of my summer vacation, but school typically ended on or about the solstice, and the first trip to the beach followed soon thereafter. So, for many years, the practical beginning of summer for me, my friends, and my family pretty much coincided with the celestial benchmark.

When I went to college, summer clearly began with the end of the spring term, which was just before Memorial Day weekend. For the next forty or so years, since it took me that long to escape from Boston and the collegiate calendar, that weekend remained the line of demarcation separating the busy working days of the spring from the fancy-free days of June, July and August. Thus, for most of my life, I have considered summer to begin on May 31st, which, speaking of lines of demarcation and important milestones, is also our anniversary. However, when we retired and moved to Sugar Hill, we found ourselves in a region where the weather is more in line with the calendar. At this latitude and altitude, summer really does begin sometime around the solstice, which the scientists tell us occurs at a precise instant sometime just before, on, or just after June 21st.

Solstice Sights

Late June is a wonderful time to spend some time outside. The lupine is in full bloom, along with many other wildflowers. Birds are busy singing, defending territories, building nests, or feeding their young. Dragonflies and butterflies capture your eye as you walk through the fields and by the wetlands.  Here are some of things that I have seen in my backyard at the summer solstice.

June 20, 1998. A black duck was in the pond with 2 ducklings, in the reeds on our side of the point. When I approached, the ducklings plodded off into the woods.

June 20, 2012, 92 degrees. A week or two ago, we thought that the bluebirds had finally defeated the tree swallows in the annual battle for the bird house by the patio. However, today we saw wrens feeding their young in the oft-disputed house!

June 20, 2018, 74 degrees, light clouds. Chalk-fronted corporals are very active today. A poor female busily laying eggs on the surface of the pond was quickly grabbed by a male.  They formed a wheel, but only for about ten seconds, when she broke free. He chased after her, sometimes the two of them spinning around in circles only six or eight inches in diameter, before he gave up. A while later, she was again busy laying her eggs. She would rise six to twelve inches in hops of one to four feet within a small area about five or six feet in diameter.

Chalk Fronted Corporal, June 21, 2022. The males have bright white “corporal stripes: on their thorax and bright white coloring on their abdomen. The females have similar patterns, but the colors are muted.

June 20, 2020, 90 degrees; hot, heavy and still; thunder clouds forming, beautiful cumulus clouds abound, yet the sky remains half blue. Some thunder. Big ravens flew low over the front yard. The dragonflies apparently don’t like the ominous weather or the evil portended by the low-flying ravens. Instead of yesterday’s dozens of chalk-fronted corporals, today there were only a few lonely individuals. On the other hand, nearly two dozen bluets swarmed over the small area where the pond weeds float near the surface.

A while later, a sudden bit of cool wind not only cleared the heat-induced oppressiveness, but also blew in the missing chalk-fronted corporals, who now swarmed over the pond like a bunch of overgrown bluets. A 3-inch bullfrog watched the dragonfly activity, but didn’t move.

June 20, 2022, 315pm, sunny, breezy, great! Two small green frogs finally popped up out of the mat after I’d been sitting at our end for ten minutes waiting for something to happen. The smaller one still had a long tail (photo), but the other one looked like a frog.

June 21, 2018. I came across two green frogs sunning by the northeast corner of the pond. I had time to take a couple of pictures, so I was startled when the larger one suddenly jumped, landing in the pond with a plop. The slightly smaller one, only about an inch and a half long, didn’t budge. I guess it’s more difficult to startle a young green frog than it is to startle a 72-year-old man.

Late June is when waxwings first show up around the pond, when song sparrows capture insects for their nestlings, and great blue herons lay their eggs in huge nests in dead trees.

June 11, 2022.

Great Blue Heron

June 16, 2016. This song sparrow sat with this insect in its mouth for several minutes, not wanting me to find the nest. It even sang with its beak full!

If you’re lucky, you may come across other youngsters when you take a walk in the woods, just as I did more than twenty years ago when I was first starting to record detailed observations of bird behavior:  

June 21, 2002. I went back to the spot in the Lower 40 where I had found the nest with catbird eggs on the 10th. There were four baby birds in the nest, two with their mouths open but making no noise and two that looked like they had just emerged from their eggs, as they were rather wet and lying in a strange shape.

A while later, I heard what at first I thought were squirrels, but when a yellow-bellied sapsucker flew to a hole about three inches in diameter ten feet below the top of a 55-foot tall snag, I realized I was hearing hungry sapsucker nestlings. The father flew to the tree every two to three minutes until the youngsters were satisfied.

· 4:29:30 – 2 to 3 seconds at the tree

· But4:31:15 – 1 second at the tree, quickly into the nest and out (2 seconds)

· 4:33 – 5 seconds at the tree, 33 seconds in the nest

· Every 2-3 minutes until 4:40, while the babies were continuously mewling

· 4:40 -4:49 – maybe just one visit; the babies were quiet

Back in 1998, when we enjoyed our first summer solstice in Sugar Hill, I knew almost nothing about butterflies. Along with everyone else more than two years old, I could identify monarchs, but beyond that, I was only able to identify swallowtails. Until I obtained a digital camera, my education did not progress very far. Like a child, I might note that I had seen a blue, white, or yellow butterfly, and I certainly enjoyed watching any butterflies as they fluttered by. However, using only binoculars and a guidebook, it was impossible to identify a butterfly unless it was large, distinctively colored, and willing to sit for more than a few seconds.  

Even with a digital camera, I found it difficult to get photos showing enough detail to distinguish among the many look-alike species. Often, a good photo of the underside of the wings is required, which is not a problem for American Ladies or Harris Checkerspots, which frequently land on a branch or a leaf with their wings folded. However, other species seldom land at all or land with their wings spread, thereby hiding any key identifying marks found on the undersides.  

American Lady, June 24, 2019

Harris Checkerspot, June 21, 2022

June 21, 2022, 76 degrees, mostly cloudy, 1130. A lone clubtail posed on a fern below the dam, so I was able to take a photo of one of these dragonflies that almost never lands, at least not near our pond. Butterflies were active along the dam: yellow swallowtails, common ringlets, skippers, nymphs, and blues. (to be continued) …

Ducks and ducklings are not as colorful as most butterflies, but if they choose to live in our small pond, they can easily be photographed. The trick is to get a photo that documents interesting behavior.

(A few minutes later on June 21, 2022) … However, the big news was not on the dam, but in the Pond. I heard a merganser croak, then another one croaked, and soon I saw six ducklings swimming along. They disappeared into the reeds when Nancy came out, but soon reappeared by Rock Island. They swam to the Point, climbed up on the rock, stayed for a while, then dropped back into the water and swam away.

Solstice Surprises

In addition to the many birds, butterflies, dragonflies, frogs and toads that will always be seen or heard at the solstice, you may also come across a few surprises. For example, garter snakes are fairly common, but they usually slither into to the undergrowth as soon as I approach. In late June, these snakes are on the lookout for the frogs and toads that come to the pond to mate. Once in a while, I have been surprised to find one content to lie in the sun, ignoring me as I take a couple of pictures.

June 22, 2015. A large garter snake stretched out along the edge of the patio.

This is also a good time to look for newts and tadpoles. Usually the newts are solitary, but once in a while I’ve seen what may be the beginning of a relationship.

June 22, 2018, 245pm, 74 degrees, light clouds, breezy – “what is so rare as a day in June?”  Four or more newts were visible at our end of the pond, not just floating and grabbing an occasional bite of air, but also checking each other out. So far, nothing more exciting than a hug. Large tadpoles have mostly hidden, but two just swam across the open area, very fast in a straight line. So shy as tadpoles, so steady as adults!

And late June is when a fawn finally gets the courage to wander off on its own. Unfortunately, without a map or a GPS, they can end up in alien territory.

June 22, 2022, 66 degrees, cloudy, noon. I watched out the window as a fawn wandered down my trail from the Point to the back yard, froze, tried the trail to the array, came back toward the yard, and finally trotted toward Pearl Lake Road. I went out, but couldn’t see where it went.

Summer Solstice Sound and Light

In the North Country, you might see the first fireflies in early June, and you might still see some stalwarts flashing their signals to celebrate the 4th of July, but their peak activity begins right around the summer solstice. Perhaps a more knowledgeable phenologist would explain their activity in relation to the emergence of no-seeums or some other noxious insect, but I prefer to believe that these insects are solar-powered miracles that naturally thrive during the longest days. Even in our first June spent in Sugar Hill, at a time when I could only name two species of butterflies, I was entranced by the fireflies.

June 20, 1998.  The fireflies were quite lively; apparently, they are more active in the heat, and it has been 90 degrees the last two days. There were about 4 dozen over the meadow, flickering constantly. We observed various flashing sequences: 1 very long (2 seconds); 3 fast; 5-6 very fast. There were also a lot in the front, but not as many as in the meadow. I brought one into the porch to surprise Nancy.

I’m not too disappointed on nights when it is too cold for the fireflies, because a short walk to the pond will still be rewarded with a chorus of frogs and toads. The peepers start calling in May, but by late June, there are so many that their chorus has changed from enjoyable sounds indicating the approach of summer into a cacophony suitable for a rock concert. Peepers are the smallest and loudest of our frogs, but they will sometimes be joined by the short trills of tree frogs, the longer trills of toads, and occasional grunts from green frogs and bullfrogs.

June 20, 2023, 11pm, 58 degrees. A few fireflies in the front yard, but too cold for much of a display on a beautiful, clear, dark night with a tree frog concert floating over the pond.

When my brother Paul first experienced a warm evening by the pond in late June, he referred to the fireflies and frog chorus as the “Sugar Hill Sound and Light Show.”

In conclusion, there’s a lot to see and hear when you wander around Sugar Hill at the summer solstice. It’s not only about the lupine, but then, don’t forget about the lupine!

June 21, 2017. Every year, we find more colors in the lupine blooming on the dam. Not only do the colors range from white to pink to baby blue to deep violet, the same stalk may have different colors on the top half and the bottom half, and the individual florets may be bi-colored.

Phenological Phacts and Photos w/ Carl Martland / May 2024

Turtle Life

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

Turtles Emerge from Hibernation

Turtles spend the winter hibernating somewhere not too far from the pond. Once the ice is out of the pond and the sun is out in the sky, the largest turtles will be seen out on Rock Island or in a sunny patch of grass at the edge of the pond. This event, remarkable only to a phenologist, is likely to be overshadowed by the cacophony of hundreds of wood frogs that also have recently emerged from hibernation. I typically see the first painted turtle when I go out to the pond to watch and listen to the wood frogs.

 April 15, 2022. I saw a turtle stick its head up about ten feet from shore near where the wood frogs had been partying.

April 17, 2023. Yesterday, the first turtle rested on Rock Island, while Wood frogs were in full party mode. Today, as the wood frog courting continued, three six-inch turtles sat on Rock Island.

The mature turtles are the first to emerge in the spring, and I suspect that the males are at least a few days in advance of the females. Why? Consider the following three facts. First, the turtles I see early in April are mostly six to seven inches long, while later on I see some that are eight or even nine inches long. This first fact comes from my personal observations. Second, the females are larger than the males. This second fact comes from guidebooks and Encyclopedia Britannica. Third, turtles mate in May, a fact based upon both observations and guidebooks. Is it too much of a leap to conclude that the male turtles, liked the male wood frogs, are very excited by the warm days of spring?

April 23, 2024, sunny, 68 degrees. A second large turtle climbs onto Rock Island, enjoying the first warm, sunny day since “Ice Out” two weeks earlier.

Painted turtles take a half-dozen years to reach maturity, and they can live more than 50 years. The medium-sized and very large turtles start to be seen in early May.

May 5, 2019. At 3pm, eight turtles were sunning on Rock Island, which I think is a record. They varied in size from medium to large and one very large. Another turtle was at water’s edge in the SE corner. Since it drew into its shell rather than slipping into the water, I was able to measure it – 5.8 inches long.

In mid-May, inch-long painted turtles emerge from the den where they spent the winter.

May 10, 2020. Dan Kenerson has photos of a 1-inch turtle that emerged from the garden area just left of their house.

May 17, 2011. A medium-sized and two small turtles sunned on the rock. Dan Kenerson said the small ones had just hatched from a hole near their driveway; he and the kids are transporting them to the pond.

Later in May, male turtles will travel from one pond to another in search of a mate.

May 21-24, 1999. I saw a turtle with a 7-inch shell coming from the backyard to the left of the dock and flopping into the pond.

May 23, 1998. A painted turtle with a 7-inch shell was on the path by the big rock in the upper meadow; it went back to the pond and swam off.

Soon the turtles match up, and the females head out from the pond to look for a place to lay their eggs.

May 30, 2018, 80 degrees, still mostly sunny, 4-5pm. A painted turtle crossed the driveway and headed toward the garden, but she didn’t go in. Later, she returned and spent a couple hours methodically digging a hole at the side of the driveway. Then she layed her eggs and expertly covered the opening.

The newly emerged turtles make a nice meal for birds, weasels, or any of the other predators lurking near the pond. Their only defense is to stay hidden and motionless once they reach the pond.

June 12-14, 2008. I found a small turtle at our end of the Pond; its shell was about 1 inch in diameter. It was very slow at first, so I could easily pick it up and trace its shell in my notebook. It stuck its head in, but after I replaced it by the shore, it eventually peeped out and started to walk.

The adults, once the mating has been taken care of, have little to do other than looking around for a meal now and then. Painted turtles are omnivores, and they will feed on any of the small creatures to be found in the pond. I wonder how hard it would be for them to catch one of the many tadpoles, especially those at the edge of the pond thinking about using their newly grown legs to get out onto the grass. Is it just coincidence that I see turtles appearing right by the spot where green frog tadpoles are thinking about coming out of the pond?

June 20, 2022. June 20, 2022, 315pm, sunny, breezy, great! After I’d been sitting at our end for ten minutes waiting for something to happen, two small green frogs finally popped up out of the mat floating on the surface of the pond. The smaller one still had a long tail, but the other one looked like a frog. Then a medium turtle appeared in the mat, and a snapper raised its head about twenty feet out.

While the elders are content basking in the sun, the youngsters are beginning to venture out of their hiding places. The youngest ones, whose shells were barely an inch long when they emerged, are a half inch longer by mid-July and two inches long by August.

June 22-28, 2022. A painted turtle with an inch-long shell rested alone on the shore at our end on the 22nd. Three days later, it was one of nine turtles with their heads out of the water at our end of the pond. This tiny turtle, which hardly twitched when I first saw it, moved a few inches from the shore into the water, dove under a floating reed, then came up again. I saw it in the same spot the next two days. However, on the 28th, it had ventured across to the other side of the pond, and it joined a small turtle on a scary, narrow ledge at the end of Rock Island.

The youngsters like to stay close to the larger turtles. Sometimes a group has just an adult and one of the youngest. At other times, it’s a family reunion with aunts, uncles and cousins. Since they all just sit there, I can’t tell whether they appreciate or merely accept each other’s company.

 July 2, 2022. Two pairs of painted turtles occupied the only dry spots on Quahog Rock. Each pair included a mature adult and a tiny youngster.

In large ponds and lakes, I’ve often seen dozens of turtles sunning on the trunks of trees that have fallen into the water. Our small pond lacks such a conference center, so the largest local gathering is restricted to about nine turtles.

September 4, 2022. Nine painted turtles of various sizes congregated on Quahog Rock to enjoy the sun. This is the most I’ve ever seen in one spot by our pond.

Turtles will climb out on Quahog Rock or Rock Island until late October. But by November, they have all found some place to hunker down for the winter. Another long period of hibernation that will be followed by another long summer basking in the sun. Again and again, for decades.  Are they thankful just to be alive? Or do they spend their time pondering the meaning of turtle life?

October 2, 2023, sunny, 66 degrees. At least four turtles on Quahog Rock today. I’ve seen a couple here as late as October 9th, but never before managed a photo this late in the year.  

Phenological Phacts and Photos w/ Carl Martland / April 2024

Spring Break

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

Had Enough Snow?

Last month, I asked whether anyone had had enough snow? At that time, it seemed we were in for an endless mud season, long before we had had our fill of winter. But now, beginning to work on this essay after a pleasant hour snowshoeing through 18 inches of fresh snow, I have a different perspective. We’re again experiencing the joys of winter. The drifts are three feet deep, the snow-coated evergreens stand out against a perfect blue sky, and I’ve stomped out trails through the Back 4 and along the dam. This, I thought, is wonderful, and we’ll have a few more days to enjoy the snow. And you know what? That will be enough for me! In a week or two, I’ll be waiting along with the wood frogs for the ice to open up on the pond.

Spring Break

We spent most of last week in York Harbor and Ogunquit, an excellent location for a spring break. Most of the sea birds that wintered along the rocky coast were still there, while the song birds heading back to North Country were, like us, taking a few days to enjoy the sounds of the surf and their favorite shore dinners. The tree branches were still bare, but some of the shrubs had hundreds of buds ready to burst once the warm weather truly arrives. We saw a few green shoots in the gardens by the inn, and we saw a single crocus that was almost in bloom. But it was too early for spring flowers, and it was colder by the coast than it had been in Sugar Hill for the first two weeks of March. Add a steady wind of 20 or 30 miles per hour, and you can be sure that we sometimes had to curtail our time walking along the broad beaches, the barren coastal paths, and the summit of Mount Agamenticus. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our time by the sea, and, by the calendar at least, we did have a “spring” break.

Rocky Coasts

After spending months amid the snow-covered peak of the White Mountains, it is a treat to see the ocean, especially as you walk along one of the paths that curve along the tops of the rocky outcroppings that line so much of the ocean shore in Maine. The Marginal Way in Perkins Cove in Ogunquit is one of our favorites, as you look to the right to see the rafts of eiders and scoters, look up to see the gulls, and look to the left to see elegant Victorian houses with wide porches and deep lawns (or is it “deep porches and wide lawns?”_Either way works.)

March 19, 2024. A view toward a typical rocky Maine coast from the beginning of the Marginal Way in Perkins Cove.

The most beautiful of the sea birds are the harlequin ducks, small ducks that revel in the surf breaking on the rockiest outcroppings. In February, we have seen eight or ten at a time, but this year we only saw a couple of them. Even so, a view of just one of these creatures is a highlight of the day’s adventure.

February 14, 2018. A harlequin duck floating a few yards below the Marginal Way, taking a short rest before diving once again into the surf.

Eiders and scoters were in abundance this year, both along the Marginal Way and in the little inlet by the Nubble, perhaps the most photogenic lighthouse in New England. These birds tend to gather in groups of a dozen or more, usually fifty or a hundred yards off the coast.

March 19, 2024. A couple of dozen black scoters floated near the nubble. One male invaded a group of females, but the others stayed in a separate clump a few yards away

March 19, 2014. The wonderfully scenic lighthouse at the Nubble in Ogunquit.

The male common eider is the most easily recognized of these common sea birds, because it is large and nearly all white. At a distance, black scoters and surf scoters seem to be rather lackluster dark birds that are content with just floating along, only occasionally diving for a snack. Up close, or in the telephoto lens, you can appreciate their most remarkable feature. Like Jimmy Durante, their personality can be dominated by their magnificent beaks.

February 14, 2018. One of many common eiders viewed at a distance from the Marginal Way

February 15, 2018. A surf scoter makes up for its drab feathers with its colorful beak and forehead.

Eiders, scoters, and sea gulls all contribute to a pleasant walk along the coast, but those of us from the North Country hope to see one of our own in its winter setting. So, when we saw a couple of loons this year, we got very excited, even though they were too far away for a photo like the one I took back in 2018.

February 15, 2018. A juvenile loon spreads its wings just off York Harbor. It probably can’t wait to get back to Pearl Lake in Lisbon or perhaps to one of the Connecticut Lakes.  

Migrating Song Birds

As noted above, mid-March was a great time to see some migrating song birds. Most mornings, in the little park across from our inn, we could see robins and song sparrows as we sat at our favorite bench looking out across a lawn that sloped down to the sea. I was happy one day to get a photo of a robin sitting barely twenty feet in front our bench, alternating between looking for an insect in the grass and then turning to gaze, as we were gazing, at the gulls and ducks flying above and floating on the sparkling bay.

March 19, 2024. A lone cardinal called from high above in one of the trees that lined the Marginal Way. It called again, from a different spot. Where is it? There, almost to the top of the tree on the left? Yes! Can I get a photo? Yes! Can I get a good photo? No, it flew away

However, the highlight of our coastal bird-watching this year was the flock of several dozen waxwings that frolicked day after day in the cherry trees right across the street from our inn. We love the regal plumage and elegant manner of these birds, and we always are excited when a little flock stops by our pond on their way north in the spring and stops by again in the fall to feed on the berries in the viburnum bushes at the edge of the Upper Meadow. But we only see little flocks here in Sugar Hill, never more than a dozen birds. Until last week, we never imagined that we could walk within a few feet of a flock of three dozen of them filling up on the dried cherries that remained in the trees and littered the ground beside the paved path where we stood still, basking in and sharing their excitement.

March 21, 2024. A flock of three dozen cedar waxwings feasted on the dry cherries that littered the ground in the little park across the street from the York Harbor Inn.

With so many of these beautiful birds hanging around day after day, it wasn’t too difficult to get a special photo. This photo of a waxwing about to take off shows that we really were seeing flashes of yellow as they flitted from branch to branch picking out the best cherries.

Phenological Phacts and Photos w/ Carl Martland / March 2024

Enough Already?

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

Had Enough Snow?

It’s the end of February, so the coldest part of winter is behind us, there’s only a few inches of snow left in the fields, and the finches are camouflaged as they rummage around the bare ground under the feeder for sunflower seeds. And we complain. About the lack of snow, the repeated thaws that turn our gravel roads to mush, and the lack of the cold snaps that we (claim) to have enjoyed so much in the past.  

Has it really been warmer than usual, with less snow? Well, I’ve been keeping track of temperature at Post Road Farm for nearly twenty years, and this winter (so far) rates as the least cold during that period. I keep track of the average high and low temperatures for each half of the cold months. According to this measure, the coldest period since 2008 was the first half of January in 2022, when the average low was minus two degrees and the average high was 20 degrees, for an average temperature of 9 degrees. The coldest half-month so far this year was the second half of January when the average low was 20 and the average high was 29 for an average temperature of 24.5. This is the first time in the last 17 years that the average temperature never dropped below 23 degrees the first or second half of January or February. Avoiding a cold snap is good for our heating bills, but most of us prefer the cold to the mud. When I looked at the weather records for Sugar Hill, I found that the total snowfall so far was pretty much the same as the historical average. The reason the ground is peeping through under the trees is not that there has been too little snow, but that there has been too much melting.  

I suspect that most of us are hoping that March will revert to the norm for late winter.   After all, if we didn’t like winter, we wouldn’t be here. So be optimistic. The snowiest and coldest days may still be ahead of us, just as they were back in 2016.

March 15, 2016, steady snow, windy at times, 15 inches of snow, gusts up to 40mph. A deer came to both the front and back doors during the night.

 March 18, 2016. This was the coldest night of the year. Since there was no moon and since there was no water vapor left in the air, the night was brilliant. The Big Dipper was nearly straight overhead, something I don’t recall ever noticing before. Jupiter could be seen large and bright through the big maple. The day continued cold and clear, and we set a one-day record generating 46.4 kwh from our solar array even with only 12 hours of daylight.

February 26, 2024.  No snow under the big trees, and the little that’s left on the lawn is likely to melt when the temperatures rise close to or above 50 today and tomorrow.

March 12, 2022. The same view out my kitchen window in mid-March two years ago shows that there is still plenty of time for a good snow storm!

Enjoy the Birds

Relatively mild weather may bring more birds to our feeder. Last March, after four days with highs near 40, we not only had an excellent showing from the regulars, a small flock of pine grosbeaks came to the feeder. I had only seen these once before, more than twenty years ago, and this was my first sighting confirmed with both a close look at a bird book and photos.  

March 5, 2023, 30 degrees, cloudy, 1145.   Great day for the feeder. First, the usual suspects: Eight chickadees, seven starlings, two male and a female cardinal, a white-breasted nuthatch, hairy woodpecker, and a titmouse. But then about seven pine grosbeaks stopped by, staying long enough for a photo session.  

February 22, 2024. Sunny, high of 36 degrees. Two dozen small birds active at the feeder today. At least 14 goldfinches, five pine siskins, four chickadees, a pair of purple finches, several blue jays, and a couple of tufted titmice at the feeder or foraging under it. Hairy and downy woodpeckers, which have been around regularly, were finally joined by their smaller cousin, a white-breasted nuthatch.

Last week, on the 23rd, a half dozen or so robins took a short rest on the tall trees seen in the above photos. I only managed a poor photo of one sitting atop the big pine, worth saving only to document their early arrival at Post Road Farm.  

Take A Walk in the Woods

Friends from away probably don’t understand our disdain for warm days and melting snow. Haven’t you had enough snow already, and aren’t you sick of huddling by the wood stove sipping hot tea every day after the sun sets? No, I would tell them, this is the time of year that is best for getting the snowshoes and taking a walk in the woods. A layer of snow, especially recent snow that still clings to the branches, transforms the woods into a magical setting. I can put on my snowshoes and head out into the silence, carrying a mug of coffee to enjoy while sitting at Two Stump, Carl’s Seat or one of the other secret places where I love to sit still, listening for the woodpeckers, and hoping to see one of the deer, foxes, or hares that have left their tracks here and there across my trails.       

March 17, 2016, 18 degrees warming to 26 degrees in mid-afternoon, pristine! When I stepped outside, two blue jays flew directly overhead, their white and light blue feathers contrasting wonderfully against the deep blue sky. I snowshoed through the Back 80 to the Big Rock, then cut across the frozen swamp to Carl’s Loop. I heard some crows cawing, a pileated woodpecker calling, and several other woodpeckers pecking, but only sporadically. Mostly it was very quiet, except for the snow falling off the boughs of the evergreens.

March 17, 2017. Snowshoe tracks by the pond head out to Foss Woods.

January 30, 2005. “Two Stump” is my favorite resting place in the Lower 40.  

Even if the birds are quiet and tracks have been covered by fresh snow, there is plenty to make a walk in the woods enjoyable.

Scraggly bark peeling off a yellow birch, birch seeds littering the snow, a babbling brook breaking the silence, and the long shadows cast over the hillside contribute to memorable afternoons.

• Right and below center:  Foss Woods, 3/19/18

• Below left:  Back 4, 3/13/22

• Below right: Sugar Hill Town Forest, 3/26/20

Opening Day

Opening Day at Fenway, always a big event for any New England baseball fan, will this year be on April 9th when the Red Sox return home against the Baltimore Orioles. When we lived in Boston, Opening Day was one of the rites of spring. But now, having lived in the North Country for nearly two decades, I find it difficult to include baseball, Baltimore Orioles, or rites of spring in the same sentence with “early April.” The earliest I’ve ever seen a Baltimore Oriole up here was way back in 2009, on April 28th. Nowadays, as winter drags on through early April, my thoughts about “Opening Day” concern “Ice Out” - the eagerly anticipated, but totally unscheduled return of the wood frogs to the pond.

April 24, 2018, 62 degrees and sunny at 10am!  The ice was a third out at 8am, but it was rapidly dissolving, turning from pure white in the morning to grey by noon, to translucent by mid-afternoon, and finally disappearing before the sun went down. We took advantage of this unusually warm and beautiful day to have breakfast on the patio.  While sitting there, we heard faint calls of wood frogs from the other side of Pearl Lake Road, from what Nancy suggested might be a vernal pool lost in the woods.   

Now, I don’t even think of watching a baseball game until late April, when the ice and the snow have finally disappeared. By then, we’re ready for spring, we no longer complain about the lack of snow, and we hope that there won’t be another frost like the one in mid-May last year. If it snows at this time of the year, even the most devoted winter enthusiasts are finally ready to say:

Enough Already!

Phenological Phacts and Photos w/ Carl Martland / February 2024

Pheeder Birds

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

If you fill it, they will come

Nancy and I returned to Sugar Hill in mid-January after spending the holidays with our son and his family in Terre Haute.  We soon had our bird feeder hanging from a pole placed so as to provide optimal viewing from our kitchen window.  As usual, it only took a few hours for a chickadee to drop in.  They seem to know every location that has ever had a feeder, and they apparently send out scouts every day to see if we, or any other of the slackards, have finally gotten around to doing our duty.  Within two days, a small flock of chickadees and tufted titmice were flouncing into the feeder, taking a seed, and flouncing back to the spruce tree.  Within a week, the word of the restaurant re-opening had spread to our local woodpeckers, blue jays, finches, and juncos. The day before yesterday, January 26th, was the best day so far this year at the feeder, as two waves of birds stopped by in mid-morning.  Several chickadees and a couple of titmice flew back and forth between the feeder and nearby trees, usually only spending the few seconds needed to grab a seed.  A blue jay foraged under the feeder, and a woodpecker spent a few minutes pecking at the suet.  After five or ten minutes, these birds departed and all was quiet again around the feeder.  But after a few more minutes, three juncos flew down to pick at seeds under the feeder.  I called to Nancy “There are three juncos …. no, four … no six …” Soon there were 13 of them spread out under the feeder picking seeds from the snow.  Within another minute or two, they were joined on the ground by a female purple finch and two gold finches while a white breasted nuthatch was at the feeder. 

Nuthatches are frequent visitors to our feeder:

 March 30, 2022.  A pair of elegant red-breasted nuthatches at the feeder.  (above)

 January 26, 2024, 32 degrees, foggy, 10-1030am.  The first nuthatch of the year kept checking for trouble while getting seeds at the feeder.  (right)

Count’em 

For decades, the NH Audubon Society has been soliciting volunteers to assist in their annual bird counts.  Using the data their volunteers have collected, they are able to determine whether different groups of birds are increasing, holding their own, or decreasing.  Their results, which show that about half of all groups of birds are decreasing in New Hampshire, are available on line (About the Birds - NH Audubon).

NH Audubon’s Backyard Winter Bird Survey is scheduled for the weekend of February 10-11.  Originated long ago as their annual cardinal/titmouse survey, NH Audubon has been seeking information on all birds since 1987.  Anyone with a feeder or another place to watch birds in their backyard is encouraged to participate.  What they are looking for is the maximum number of each species that you observe at one time.  Audubon provides a form that lists a couple of dozen species that you might see at the feeder or in your backyard (Backyard Winter Bird Survey - NH Audubon).

All you need to do is look out the window, identify and count the birds, record the maximum number that you see, and then report the results on line. 

Which one is it?

No one needs a guidebook to identify a chickadee, a cardinal, or a gold finch, but many will need a guidebook to identify less well-known visitors, such as red polls and pine siskins. A good photo will capture the male siskins yellow wing bars or the red poll male’s little red cap, yellow bill, pink chest, but the juveniles and females of both species are less easily distinguished.  Since siskins and red polls both travel in small flocks, you often can use the males to identify the species and then count the number of birds in the flock.

February 26, 2022.  A pair of pine siskins dines at the feeder, and we can see some yellow on the male’s wings.

February 5, 2023.  The red poll’s red cap is barely visible in this photo.  Why don’t they stay still in a better pose for a photo?

 Nearly everyone needs a guidebook to distinguish between some very similar species.   For example, I always require a good photo and a guidebook to figure out whether I’ve seen a male house finch or a male purple finch, both of which have pretty much the same wonderful colors. 

Purple Finch, February 5, 2022.  This finch has very extensive colors and less prominent chest stripes.

House Finch, April 6, 2022.  This finch has less extensive colors and very prominent chest stripes.

I have even more trouble with downy and hairy woodpeckers. The guidebook tells me that the hairy has a longer bill, and, at 9.25 inches, is much longer that the 6.75 inch downy.  Unfortunately, while it is easy to remember which bird is largest, how can we tell how big a bird is?    A few times, a photo will include something that can be used as a ruler.  For example, one of my favorite feeder photos (or should that be “phavorite pheeder photos?”) shows a chickadee photo-bombing a woodpecker.  Using a ruler against the screen, I measured – and you can verify - that the ratio of their lengths is about “Nine to Five” (in capital letters to remind everyone of a movie well worth another viewing).  Mr. Sibley tells me that chickadees are just over 5.25 inches long, so this woodpecker must have been more than 9 inches long – a hairy woodpecker.

January 8. 2021.  A chickadee flew in just after a woodpecker landed on the feeder. 

However, this photo-bombed portrait is the only one of my many dozens of woodpecker photos that allowed such a neat comparison.  This morning, by happenstance, I came up with a simple solution to the problem of measuring the length of a woodpecker.  When a woodpecker flew up to the suet, I took several photos, one of which showed the bird on the pole, looking straight at the bird house.  Aha!  I quickly got a ruler, went out to the feeder, and found that the side board of the feeder is 8.75 inches tall, slightly less than the 9.25" length of a hairy woodpecker.  Since the woodpecker on the pole was only two thirds the height of the feeder, it clearly was a downy. 

January 28, 2024.  The photo on the left inspired me to use the feeder itself as a ruler that can be used to distinguish downy from the much larger hairy woodpeckers.

Some News is Good News

Cardinals and tufted titmice, the original focus of the Audubon survey are both moving their ranges northward.  The first cardinal I saw as a kid, when I lived in Rhode Island, was when we visited my cousins in southern Connecticut in the early fifties.  Thirty years later, the cardinals had moved at least as far north as Boston, and we regularly had cardinals in the yard.  But it was only about ten years ago that we saw our first cardinal above the notch, and that one was flying behind the Dairy Bar in Franconia on a nice summer day.  For the past few years, we not only have seen cardinals in the summer, but they have been regular visitors to our feeder. 

February 28, 2023.  A pair of cardinals seeking sunflower seeds below the feeder

In the last two weeks, I have at one time or another seen a murder of crows, thirteen juncos, six goldfinches, six blue jays, five chickadees, three tufted titmice, two purple finches and a single white-breasted nuthatch, downy woodpecker, and hairy woodpecker.  I hope soon to see some grosbeaks, redpolls, cardinals, turkeys, grouse, and even some of the rarer visitors.  How many to expect on the second weekend in February, who knows?  In the spirit of that holiday weekend, I can only close by saying:

Happy Washington’s Bird Day!

Phenological Phacts and Photos w/ Carl Martland / January 2024

A Virtual Caribbean Vacation

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

A Winter Vacation

As winter drags on, week after week, many in the North Country begin to think about a vacation, somewhere where it is warm, where there are beaches, and life proceeds at a slower pace. Well, to be honest, it is hard to proceed at a slower pace than my winter life in Sugar Hill, where an hour or so cutting firewood is followed by twice as much time reading, sipping hot tea in the warmth of the wood stove, eating leftovers, and enjoying Father Brown or one of our other favorite streaming series. 

Still, however much I claim to love the warmth by the wood stove, I know that people are sitting on the beach in the Virgin Islands, listening to the waves, and watching sea birds flying high overhead. That is why this month I have prepared a virtual birdwatching vacation for you.

The best sites were located close to the 50-foot bluff that rose nearly straight up from the Bay.

Birds by the Tent-Cottage

Each site had a tent-cottage that covered three quarters of a 16’ x 16’ platform, leaving one corner open where we could take a shower, enjoy a cold drink, watch the iguanas in the cacti, and chat with the fearless little banaquits that looked for sugar that we sprinkled along the railing.

April 10, 2010. A banaquit looks for sugar amid the cracks on the railing of our tent-cottage.

Pearly eyed thrashers and mourning doves would walk along the top of our tent, waking us up in the morning and amusing us as they perched on the rails of our porch during the day. These thrashers stay in the Carribean throughout the year, while the doves, like us, only come for the winter. These birds would join the banaquits and Bahamian bullfinches on the deck railings.

1 Photos and text by Carl D. Martland, founding member of ACT, long-time resident of Sugar Hill, and author of Sugar Hill Days: What’s Happening in the Fields, Wetlands, and Forests of a Small New Hampshire Town on the Western Edge of the White Mountain. Quotations from his book and his journals indicate the dates of and the situations depicted in the photos.

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The well-named “Pearly-Eyed Thrasher”is always on the lookout for food.

Female Bahamian bullfinch on the railing of our tent cottage. Notice the cacti in the background.

Magnificent Birds High Overhead

One of the most interesting birds along the coast is the magnificent frigatebird (fregata magnificens) which we frequently watched circling high above Maho Bay, sometimes flying low over the water looking for fish close to the shore. My National Geographic Field Guide shows this bird’s North American range as the warm waters of the Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico, not including any of the mainland or the islands. As their name suggests, frigatebirds are most often seen from the deck of a ship, whether by 18th century Spanish sailors hoping to bring silver back to Spain, English pirates hoping to wreck the Spaniards’ plans, or 21st century tourists enjoying a week-long cruise from Florida to the islands. We, not having access to the deck of a frigate or a cruise ship, had to be content watching these birds from the deck of our tent cottage.

This bird is nearly twice the size of a seagull, and you notice its bright white chest, its long, forked tail and its impressive wingspan as it soars high over the Bay. It certainly is a “magnificent” bird, even if you don’t know about the male’s red little throat patch that is barely visible to the naked eye. During mating season, this nondescript throat patch balloons to a brilliant red chest display that proves to be irresistible to the females of the species. 

I only learned about this bird’s range and mating behavior when doing some research for this essay, so I didn’t realize why it was called “frigatebird” and underestimated its “magnificence” as well as its size. It is 40 inches long and has a wingspan of 90 inches.  By comparison, the turkey vulture, a much bulkier bird that we commonly see soaring over the hills and fields of the North Country, is only 27 inches long with a wingspan of 69 inches. In fact, the magnificent frigatebird has the largest wingspan relative to its weight of any bird. (Long-time Celtics fans will remember Kevin McHale as a human being with a similarly impressive ratio of “wingspan” to weight.)

Big Birds by the Shore

To get from our tent-cottage to the closest beach, we had to walk a quarter mile or so along the boardwalk, then down about fifty steps to Little Maho Bay, a wonderful beach about two hundred yards long where you could rent a kayak or a paddleboard or buy a snack. We usually continued past this beach, scrambling over a couple of rocky outcroppings, to reach the much longer, wilder beach along Francis Bay. Along the way we would nearly always get close-up views of a couple of brown pelicans. Some would just sit at the shoreline, letting the little wavelets trickle over their feet; others would soar high above the bay; and usually one or two would be flying close to the water, looking for lunch, before suddenly diving down to catch an unsuspecting fish. One day, a pelican was hunting right next to the outcropping that we had to cross on our way to Francis Bay, and I managed to capture the instant when it struck the water with the tip of its beak.

We all know the key fact about pelican anatomy as described by that famous naturalist, Ogden Nash:

A wonderful bird is the pelican.

  Its beak can hold more than its belly can.

Very true, and as we walked along the beaches, we would often see a pelican catch a fish, open its beak slightly to allow any water to drain out, then raise its head straight up and gulp down its lunch. One day, when the sun was at the right angle, I took a photo showing how amazingly far the beak could stretch. This bird’s beautiful white head and neck indicate that this was a mature male.

April 17, 2011. A mature pelican has just caught a small fish, which it is holding in the tip of its beak.

The pelicans were certainly a major attraction by the beach, but they weren’t the only large avian visitors. Egrets and herons would also drop in and take up a position along the shoreline waiting for whatever snacks might be brought in by the waves. Great blue heron spend their summers as far north as southern Canada, and they only make it to the Virgin Island in the middle of winter. As the great blue heron can commonly be seen in the North Country, we were more excited to see the great egret and the little blue heron that only migrate as far north as the New Hampshire coast. Although one of these is called “great” and the other is called “little,” they are both nearly as large as the great blue heron. They certainly are very large compared to other egrets and smaller herons that spend their winters in the Caribbean islands.

Great Egret

Francis Bay, April 20, 2013

Little Blue Heron

Francis Bay, April 4, 2009

Birds Feeding in the Lagoon

For me, one of the best features of Maho Bay was the shallow brackish lagoon that was a couple of hundred yards behind the mangroves and palm trees that provided shade next to the beach. A trail led through a tropical forest to a boardwalk parallel to the edge of the lagoon, and there were several locations where a side-boardwalk led right to the edge of the lagoon. When the lagoon was low, thousands of tiny crabs could be seen scurrying in and around the little holes where they lived in the mud flat. These proved to be a great attraction for migratory shore birds.

April 10, 2012. Thousands of inch-long crabs covered the mud flat at the edge of the lagoon behind Francis Bay. Shorebirds feeding on them included lesser yellowlegs (below right) and sandpipers (below left).

Various ducks, egrets, and heron would look for fish in the shallow water of the lagoon, and songbirds flitted about the surrounding woods.  The photo below shows a typical view across the greenish water of the lagoon toward some piles of weathered driftwood and the reeds lining the far side of the lagoon. This photo, taken in 2012, included what I first thought was just another pair of drab ducks.  Back then, perhaps under the influence of my granddaughter, I apparently was happy to consider this a photo of “lagoon with ducks.” Karoline began her study of birds as a toddler, classifying them into two categories: “duck” and “not a duck.” Today, however, when I zoomed in with my guidebook in hand, I discovered that the two closest birds were white-cheeked pintails, birds of Central and South America that almost never stray as far north as Florida.

April 11, 2012. A pair of white-cheeked pintails feeding in the lagoon behind Francis Bay.

Birds by the Trails

I would almost always see pearly-eyed thrashers, Bahamian bullfinches, doves, and hummingbirds every time I took a walk along the trails and boardwalks near Maho Bay, and always hoped to see something new. One day, as I walked along a trail behind the lagoon, I chanced to see an unknown songbird sitting on a branch over the trail, unwilling to take the effort to fly away as I zoomed in to take its picture (see below). The bold white patches on its tail and its buffy breast turned out to be the classic field marks for mangrove cuckoos, which reside in the Caribbean and central America and only reach the states if blown off course by a storm. Its cousin, the yellow-billed cuckoo, breeds throughout the eastern and central states, and I have heard as well as seen one in Sugar Hill.

April 17, 2011, a mangrove cuckoo has found a fine spot to sit in the middle of a tangle of branches of a mangrove tree near the lagoon behind Francis Bay. This bird clearly is acting properly, as my National Geographic Field Guide says these cuckoos are “found chiefly in mangrove swamps … perching quietly near the center of tree.”

Birds Seen from the Boardwalk

Following a day in the hot sun at the beach, Nancy and I would return to our tent cottage, knowing that some of the deck was now in the shade. We’d get a cold drink and some chips, sit in the shade, and perhaps mull over the life style of an iguana that was sitting in the same position on the same cactus that he had been sitting on when we left for the beach many hours earlier. Someone happening to pass by along the boardwalk, after noticing us sitting motionless and staring at the iguana, could have muttered to themselves, “what a bunch of lazy birds!”

Phenological Phacts and Photos w/ Carl Martland / November 2023

Changing of the Guard

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

Bye, Bye Birdie

By the beginning of November, the last of the summer birds have departed. The bluebirds that nested in our back yard and the redwings that raised such a ruckus around the pond were gone by mid-August. The warblers and the hummingbirds now search for their meals in Cape Cod or the Eastern Shore of Virginia. We might see a few mergansers in our pond or down at Coffin Pond, but they too will be far south before Veterans Day.

November 7, 2022, 72 degrees (!). At least three hooded mergansers, including one pair, were on the dam the last two days. Today, one that was floating in the pond flew to the other end and hid in the reeds when I approached.

November 7, 2020. Several common mergansers could be seen preening, scratching, and floating along on the other side of Coffin Pond.

November 1, 2009. There are 21 robins in the back yard and one in the front, who needs to get with the program.

Robins are the most cooperative migrant for the photographer. They travel in a flock of a dozen or two, and they frequently decide to spend a half hour or more foraging in the back yard. There is always plenty of time to get my camera, and if I’m in a rush, I know they’ll be back in a day or two. 

1 Photos and text by Carl D. Martland, founding member of ACT, long-time resident of Sugar Hill, and author of Sugar Hill Days: What’s Happening in the Fields, Wetlands, and Forests of a Small New Hampshire Town on the Western Edge of the White Mountain. Quotations from his book and his journals indicate the dates of and the situations depicted in the photos.

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Keeping the camera right at hand near the kitchen window is critical for those rare occasions when a woodcock or a snipe strays from the protection of the fields. They seldom stay very long on the lawn, and they can easily be spooked.

November 6, 2020, 4:45pm. When I went to the kitchen for a late afternoon snack, a woodcock was outside on the lawn doing the exact same thing.

Sometimes, all I can do is to make a note in my journal, either because the birds are too far away or too jittery.

November 8-9, 2011. There were two bluebirds in the trees by Post Road, across from our driveway.

Out of the Woods

Not all of our summer residents depart for sunnier climes. Turkeys, blue jays, woodpeckers, grouse and chickadees are here year-round, but they are easier to see once the leaves have fallen, and they are less reclusive once their youngsters can pretty much fend for themselves. Turkeys are commonly seen along the highways in the late fall, and a couple of times we have seen owls:

November 21, 2020. We saw two flocks of about a dozen turkeys each along Pearl Lake Road.

December 10-13, 1999. We went to the Lower 45 after lunch. The highlight was seeing a barred owl sitting in a pine tree, looking first at Nancy, then at me, and then flying lugubriously across the field. Its wing span was about 5 feet.

December 25, 2010. After hearing a pileated woodpecker, I went deeper into the woods and found two of the woodpeckers, one high on a snag and the other way up on a 100-foot poplar tree. After about ten minutes, one flew off to a nearby tree and made several of its raucous calls.

Often when I take my walk out by the pond, a half dozen or so chickadees gather around, perching on branches only ten or fifteen feet away, chirping all the time. I don’t know if they are happy to see me or if their chatter is intended to warn everyone else that a big, bad guy is approaching.

December 1, 2020. Since the leaves are off the trees, I was able to get a photo of one of the little groups of chickadees that made a racket as I approached the Point.

Winter Residents

Eventually, the migrating robins and bluebirds have all made it past Sugar Hill, and we begin to look for the finches, redpolls, juncos and the others that spend their winters with us. At first, we see them resting or flitting about in the trees by the roadside or at the edge of the meadows.

November 11, 2018. A flock of redpolls flitted about in the bare branches of the willows and birches in the Lower Meadow.

Once the feeder is out, these winter birds begin to stop by. It usually takes only an hour or two for the ever-observant chickadees to spot the feeder, and their chatter attracts their allies.

Thanksgiving, November 26, 2020. We put out the feeder today. Within an hour, three chickadees showed up, soon joined by two blue jays and a nuthatch.

November 27, 2020.A goldfinch and a nuthatch shared the ledge on the birdfeeder. The goldfinch was just starting to show some yellow.

By the end of the year, the changing of the guard is complete. The robins, bluebirds, redwings, and mergansers have long since departed. The migrants have had their rest and continued on to who knows where. The red polls that flocked high above the Lower Meadow a month or so ago still drop by the feeder from time to time, perhaps in a flock of a dozen or more. The chickadees, finches, juncos, and nuthatches are regulars, and the downy and hairy woodpeckers split their time between the feeder and the big willow.

January 15, 2018, 12 degrees, 3pm. All the local birds came to the feeder for breakfast: five gold finches, a half dozen juncos, a brilliant purple finch, a couple of chickadees, a blue jay, and a white-breasted nuthatch.

Best take some time right now to top up your wood pile, buy a big bag of bird seed, and put the pole for the feeder out before the ground freezes. Then, have your camera ready to catch these beauties in the snow, by the feeder or, even better, on a branch surrounded by a clear, blue sky.

December 23, 2017. A female purple finch showed up just before Christmas. They’re usually not here until after the New Year.

January 15, 2018. A downy woodpecker has been going back and forth between the big willow and the feeder for the past few days.

During the COVID year, I had a lot of time to spend looking out the window at the feeder. One day in mid-December, I was surprised to see a starling that should have been gone a month or two earlier together with a new arrival that we all yearn to see. At first you may think this evening grosbeak is scowling at me for interrupting its meal, but I believe we’re seeing a wry smile communicating something like “Hiya, matey, good to see you again – and thanks for the grub!”

December 16, 2020, 10 degrees. A last, lonely starling showed up at the feeder, probably wishing he’d stayed with the flock that had long ago left the frozen north. I was much more interested in watching the season’s first Evening Grosbeak as he foraged for sunflower seeds under the feeder.

Phenological Phacts and Photos w/ Carl Martland / October 2023

The Other Colors

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

Fall Foliage

Last year, at the end of a long, dry summer, I often wondered “Will the foliage be any good this year?” Probably not, I thought, remembering the ugly, blackened maple leaves that littered our driveway at the height of the drought. But I was wrong, the foliage colors were great, and the hillsides of Sugar Hill continued their brazen display through the middle of October.

October 22, 2022, 65 degrees, partly cloudy, warm & wonderful! The high hills are devoid of color, but the local hills still have a lot of yellow and orange and a tiny bit of red; the larches are turning. …

Tourists driving through the notches would have been disappointed by the lack of color on the peaks, and those on the tour buses would have hoped for more reds, but those lucky enough to live in the North Country simply appreciated the lingering yellows and oranges.

My journal entry for October 22nd continues:

 … On the dam, I found three meadowhawks, two bluets, and one bee, but no butterflies.

In other words, even at the end of October, I was out looking for the insects and flowers that still brightened my daily walks along the dam and through the meadows.

Whatever the status of the foliage seen across the mountain ranges, we can take the time to enjoy what may be called “the other colors” that can be found right at our footsteps and all around us. Look closely and you will see all the colors of the rainbow.

Red Maples

Though the red maples have a few days of glory at the end of September, their fallen leaves brighten the trails for a few more weeks. Red maples provide a blaze of glory in early fall, and individual leaves merit our attention long afterwards.

September 29, 2015. A brilliant red maple!

October 9, 2015. A fallen maple leaf creates a spot of color on my trail through the Back 4.

1 Photos and text by Carl D. Martland, founding member of ACT, long-time resident of Sugar Hill, and author of Sugar Hill Days: What’s Happening in the Fields, Wetlands, and Forests of a Small New Hampshire Town on the Western Edge of the White Mountain. Quotations from his book and his journals indicate the dates of and the situations depicted in the photos.

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Orange Moon

Not all the “other colors” are in the trees or on the ground. If we’re lucky, the skies may be clear when the harvest moon rises above the mountains, which was the case last year (and which may be the case in about two hours, since I’m writing this on September 28th, the night of the harvest moon in 2023.)

September 10, 2022. The Harvest Moon rises, an orange orb above the Kinsmans.

Of courses, there are other glimpses of orange worth a photo just as exhilarating as the ones that captured the orange moon or the entire hillside of Sugar Hill.

October 15, 2022. The afternoon sun highlighted the remaining orange leaves along Pearl Lake Road, an especially captivating sight when viewed through the silvered limbs of the large maple at the corner of Post and Pearl Lake Roads.

Yellow-Legged Meadowhawk

Meadowhawks are the little red dragonflies that emerge from small ponds in late summer and frolic around any body of water through the beginning of October. Several species are common in our region, and unlike most insects, they are each aptly named for their distinguishing characteristic. The white-faced meadowhawk is the first to arrive in early August, and it is the most numerous around our pond. The yellow-legged meadowhawk arrives in mid-August, while the less common cherry-faced and saffron-winged meadowhawks often wait until mid-September. They all love to land on goldenrod and cattails, often forming a wheel, a contorted position that enables a pair to fertilize her eggs.

August 18, 2016. This juvenile yellow-legged meadowhawk was one of the first I’ve seen this year.

September 19, 2018. A pair of yellow-legged meadowhawks formed a wheel. Soon afterwards, they flew over to the pond to lay her eggs.

Green Frog

Green frogs begin their life as tadpoles, and they spend much of their early days under the ice, waiting along with us for the end of the long winter. It is the end of the summer, when they are more than a year old, before they are finally ready to give up their carefree swimming with their buddies and settle down to a solemn, solitary life by the side of the pond. In late summer and early fall, I sometimes find a dozen or more of them sitting along the shore in an opening amidst the reeds. Usually, I am more interested in the dragonflies, because these frogs almost never move.

September 24, 2015. There are still some dragonflies (variable darners and meadowhawks) and damsel flies pairing off. Recently, I’ve seen quite a few small green frogs sunning at the edge of the pond.

Apparently, these small green frogs are also interested in the meadowhawks, but not from my aesthetic or phenological perspectives:

October 6, 2017, 60 degrees, cloudy, still, 330pm. A green frog sat motionless at the water’s edge at a place where meadowhawks were flying in and out, up and down. I focused my camera, but before I could snap a picture, the small frog leaped straight up, trying to snag a meadowhawk that fortunately (for the dragonfly) did not land on the bit of reed that was two inches above the frog. I’ve seen frogs do this before, sometimes successfully, but very infrequently, maybe just a dozen times in 20 years of watching. They must be able to get plenty to eat by sitting still and letting dinner come to them.

October 5, 2017. I took a photo of one of the small green frogs sitting patiently by the edge of the pond. I can’t tell if it was eating something or if it just had an air bubble at the side of its mouth.

Bluebirds

By early October, the fall migration is well underway, and we’re likely to see flickers, bluebirds and a half dozen or more other birds on the lawn, over the meadows, or by the pond.

October 9, 2020, 34 degrees, 930-1030am. A pair of woodcock were feeding in the back lawn, staying in the shade on frost-bejeweled grass. In the movies I took while listening to Patsy Cline, they seemed to bob and bounce in time with the music. I also took a movie of a yellow-bellied sapsucker in the big willow, as well as pictures of the frost coating the wildflowers in the Upper Meadow. In the afternoon, a yellow-rumped warbler, a pine siskin, and a half dozen robins simultaneously foraged across the front yard.

Nancy loves to see the little flocks of flickers when they stop by for a fall forage, but I most enjoy seeing the return of the bluebirds. Although bluebirds were common where I grew up in Rhode Island, we seldom if ever saw them when we lived in Boston. Now a pair often nests in what we call the “Front House,” and others stop by in small groups as they head south for the winter.

October 9, 2020, 2pm.

In the afternoon, after it had warmed up, a half dozen bluebirds enjoyed the bird bath and inspected the “Front House.”

Purple Gentians

Bottle gentians bloom in mid-September, a time when asters and goldenrods dominate the fields and most other wildflowers have gone to seed. Sometimes you can find several clumps beside a rail trail or along a trail made by deer or bears crossing through a field.

 September 13, 2014. Gentians bloom in small clumps atop stalks that rise a foot or two off the ground.

I think deer or bears nip these lovely blossoms as a little treat as they prepare for the winter by eating bushels of apples. After finishing off the gentians with a few quick bites, they amble on toward the apple trees.

September 12, 2007 64 degrees, partly cloudy. At 3pm, the fields under the power lines were bright with fall colors: asters (white and light violet), goldenrod, red leaves on small trees, and bronzed ferns. … About 25 bottle gentians were in peak bloom near the end of the path.

September 18, 2007. When I found bear scat under the power lines near where I had seen the gentians last week, I suspected that the flowers had been planted by bears or other animals using this trail.

Since my discovery of gentians under the power lines back in 2007, I try to remember to look for them soon after Labor Day. For a while, we had some right by our pond:

September 14, 2013. For several years, we had some nice clumps of gentians next to the pond by Larch Meadow, but no longer. Since we have evidence of bears using my trail along the pond, perhaps they were eating the flowers and destroying the plants.

Although I miss having gentians by the pond, I have enjoyed finding a great many new clumps along some of my other trails:

September 13, 2019, 66 degrees, breeze, all sun! I followed my old Creamery Pond trail down from Pearl Lake Road through the woods to the brook, where I saw a few white-faced meadowhawks and many crickets and grasshoppers. Coming out to the fields under the power lines, I didn’t see any butterflies or any more dragonflies, but I did find a nice batch of gentians and some pretty golden ferns. Under the power lines on the other side of the road, I saw two monarchs and a mosaic darner flying near more golden ferns and an even larger batch of gentians.

Look for the “Other Colors”

I could go on a great length, but the point I am trying to make is simple. The peak foliage only lasts a week or so, but you can get nearly as much enjoyment from the “other colors” for pretty much all of September and October.  As I said in the introduction, “Look closely, and you will see all the colors of the rainbow.”

Of course, I can’t deny the appeal of the mountainsides of fall foliage that pulls the leaf peepers up I93. After all, when autumn leaves begin to call,

EVERYONE LONGS TO BE IN THE NORTH COUNTRY!

October 5, 2009. The end of a brilliant rainbow seemed to lie somewhere in the field on the other side of Post Road. I didn’t check for the pot of gold, figuring that one of the neighbors was already out there looking for it.

Phenological Phacts and Photos w/ Carl Martland / September 2023

Summer’s End

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

Labor Day

When you’re young, the beginning and end of summer are clearly defined. Summer begins about 3pm on the last day of school and ends when you have to get up early, dress nicely, and go out to wait for the bus. Whether or not these definitions make any sense depends upon where you go to school. In Indiana, summer starts reasonably when school ends in early June, but 90-degree days may still be viewed as relatively cool when kids are forced back to school well before the end of August. The school calendar in NH is more closely aligned with what a rational person would consider to be summer. School lets out in early June, which still is spring, and by the end of August, when school opens up, we already have had to use extra blankets more than once, and the birches are showing some color. In neither place does the school calendar or common sense align with the meteorological definition of summer. June 22 to September 22 is too short an interval for summer in Terre Haute, but it is too long in Sugar Hill. I went to school in Rhode Island, where school ended on or about June 22nd, depending upon the number of snow days, and didn’t start up again until the week after Labor Day. I spent most of the next 45 years working to an academic calendar in Boston.  Throughout this long period, summer for me began on Memorial Day and ended on Labor Day. After Labor Day, I was much too busy to worry about the changing seasons.

But all that is in the past. Labor Day no longer serves me as a convenient, consistent marker of the end of summer. Being retired, we’re no longer constrained by any calendar, whether defined by a school board or by the timing of the solstices and equinoxes. We simply notice nature’s signals that summer is coming to an end. There are many such signals, but I’ll just highlight the four Fs: “Flowers, Fruits, Flickers and Foliage.”

Flowers

In early spring, we find delicate flowers popping up in forest floors, taking advantage of the light available before the trees leaf out. In late spring, we’re astonished at how fast everything grows, and we’re delighted with the daisies, buttercups, hawkweed, lupine and so many other wildflowers that adorn our roadsides and fill our fields. As summer proceeds, we look for iris, turtlehead, black-eyed Susans and other beautiful, elegant flowers, each blossom calling for our attention and each plant worthy of closer inspection. These flowers have to standout to attract the bees and other insects seeking their nectar.

In August there is a change along the roadsides and in the fields that is impossible to miss or to ignore. The early summer flowers give way to the onslaught of goldenrods and asters, families of flowers noted for their diversity and their abundance of blossoms. By the end of August, banks of these flowers cover the fields and hang over the trails, as if these plants sense that time is short, that fall is on the way.  

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1 Photos and text by Carl D. Martland, founding member of ACT, long-time resident of Sugar Hill, and author of Sugar Hill Days: What’s Happening in the Fields, Wetlands, and Forests of a Small New Hampshire Town on the Western Edge of the White Mountain. Quotations from his book and his journals indicate the dates of and the situations depicted in the photos.

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September 5, 2023. The wet summer has resulted in massive displays of asters. The New England asters form masses of color on the dam and in the Upper Meadow.

When I go out by the pond on Labor Day weekend, everywhere I look I see asters and goldenrod. Flat-topped white asters have grown to be more than five feet tall, and many have fallen under their own weight, as they are not designed to reach so high. New England and New York asters compete for my attention, the former being more common, but the latter being a deeper violet. A half dozen species of goldenrod may have quite distinct shapes, stems, and leaves, but it is their combined effort to color the landscape that attracts me and the butterflies.

September 4, 2023. A white admiral flits from one branch to another within an opening in a large patch of goldenrod.

Fruits

Blueberries start to ripen in the middle of July, a sure sign that summer is here. By the end of the month, I’m spending an hour or so every other morning just trying to pick the blueberries before the birds get them or bears find them. Then I have to wash them, figure out where to put them, decide whether or not to make jam, and wonder if there is still room in the freezer for more berries. By the end of the first week in August, the blueberries are pretty much done, and that is a sign that the ‘lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer” won’t last forever.

But that’s not the end of the fruits. Blackberries and raspberries may last through the end of August, prolonging the feeling of summer, even though the nighttime temperatures may have dipped into the 40s. Another week passes, and I’m happy to have more free time now that the blackberries have also been harvested. It may take a couple of days, but soon I will notice branches weighted down with apples suddenly grown to full size and beginning to turn color. We have a dozen or so wild apple trees, some of which need to be picked around Labor Day before they fall and attract the deer and bears that have been waiting for the chance to get a real meal from these large, tasty fruits. So that is a clear signal that summer is coming to an end. I now have to be ready to pick the apples, and I have to get the implements ready to make apple sauce, apple pies, or dried apples.

September 19, 2014: A massive crop of apples weighs down the upper branches of one of the wild apple trees in the Back 4.

Sometime in September, we also notice the rose hips, often obscured by the aster and goldenrod that have grown over the pasture roses whose pink flowers were so lovely a month earlier. Some of the neighbors make jelly out of these fruits, a task that I am happy to leave to them.

September 5, 2023. I didn’t at first notice the rose hips hidden amidst and below the overhanging goldenrod and asters.

Flickers

Migrating birds start coming through in the latter half of August. Some of these, the robins and redwings that gather on our lawn or by the pond most likely have been living nearby. Their arrival at best sparks a mild statement such as “Hey, did you notice the robins on the lawn? They’re the first I’ve seen in a week or two.” The same goes for any merganser that shows up at the pond about this time; we wonder if it is one that was raised on our pond, but after watching a family of them in July, seeing one or two in September is hardly a remarkable sight.

Sparrows and warblers trickle in, but they are of greater interest to real birders than they are to the casual observer sitting on the porch enjoying a morning coffee. A creature that requires a special effort to see and identify doesn’t qualify as one of nature’s best signs of summer’s end.

No, a true signal that fall is on the way is when a bird well-known for its size, colors and habits returns to amuse itself on the lawn right in front of your picture window. For us, that bird is the flicker, because these birds arrive, sometimes in small flocks, and spend hours hunting for insects in the lawn. I first observed this behavior more than twenty years ago:  

July 15, 2002. There were two flickers in the front yard this morning and another below the power lines in the Lower 40. At 3pm, one was in the front yard digging a hole with its bill and getting ants. It would have its head down for 10-15 seconds at a time, then look up quickly and just as quickly return to the feast. I went over to have a look: the hole was a perfect cone, about a half inch in diameter at the top and about two feet deep, with three ants scurrying around the sides. I also saw a pair by the pond about 630pm. [I didn’t see any on the 17th, but saw one on the 18th; I then didn’t note any more until I saw four or five in Pearl Lake Road when we drove up at dusk.]

Most years, we only see flickers when they are migrating, which is why we’re excited to see them when they return in the fall. They typically show up some time in mid-September, and they are a sure sign that the season is changing.

September 9, 2020. A flicker foraged freely on the front lawn

Flickers, of course, are only one of the many species of birds that migrate through our region at the end of summer. The first year that we were in Sugar Hill in mid-September, I was excited to see so many migrating birds:

September 16-18, 2007. On the 16th, we saw flickers on Hadley Road. Yesterday, chickadees, blue jays, crows, and phoebes were active in our yard. Today, bluebirds were scavenging in the driveway, the first time we’ve seen them this fall. We also saw a phoebe, a red-breasted merganser, mourning doves and grouse in or around the Pond.

I could have added one of these migrants to the title of this section, but I was worried that some readers would react with a groan. However, I can’t resist at least mentioning this bird. Although it lacks the distinctive size and colors that I just emphasized as important criteria, its tail-wagging is always interesting, and its name certainly fits in with the alliterative theme to my list of summer-ending signals. Phoebe’s often nest in one of the nooks under the eaves of our house, so we frequently seen them in the summer posing and wagging their tails as they sit on one of their favorite perches on the patio or by the pond.

September 25, 2019. A phoebe landed in one of the trees next to the pond. Was it one of the ones the nested under our eaves?

Foliage

The title of this section is simply “Foliage,” not “Fall Foliage,” because this section refers to the first glimpses of reds and yellows that signal the approaching end of summer. Young maples often turn bright red in August, as do certain vines. In swamps and around swamps, maples and birches turn colors before any reds or yellows are visible in the forests. So, when we take a walk in August or early September, we take notice of any bits of color and remark “fall is on the way.”

September 5, 2023. Sure signs that summer is coming to an end: the bird house by the blueberry patch is empty; the asters and goldenrod are in full bloom; apples have ripened on one tree in the Upper Meadow, and many vines have turned a bright red.

An Alternative Title for this Essay

The idea of writing about the end of summer came to me as we chatted with Chuck and Betsey before going in to see Mama Mia! at the Weathervane Theatre.  Nancy and Betsey were both proud to be wearing white pants on Labor Day, and they had to remind Chuck and me that “One cannot wear white after Labor Day!”  I thought about the similar dictum whereby the US Army required me to wear my winter dress uniform one 90-degree day in early May back in 1971, because the approved date for switching to summer uniforms was still a week or two away.  Using specific dates to mark the season for certain types of clothes reminded me of the foolishness of using specific dates to mark the beginning or end of any season. 

I therefore began thinking about what to put it his essay.  I asked Nancy what she thought of “Flowers, Fruits, Flickers, and Foliage” as a title.  She expressed some interest, especially my highlighting of one of her favorite birds.  But then her background as a gardener took over, and she remarked quite happily about the garden flower that flourishes at the end of the summer.  She therefore suggested another title: 

“Mum’s the Word.”

Phenological Phacts and Photos w/ Carl Martland / August 2023

These Are a Few of My Favorite Wings

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

My Favorite Wings: Birds

When I was twelve, I had a chance to spend several weeks with my best friend and his family in an unusual campground on a hillside overlooking Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island. In my experience, and I expect also in yours, this campground was unique. But back in 1958, thousands of men my father’s age would have immediately recognized it, because it consisted solely of World War II surplus squad tents laid out evenly in rows on either side of a well-maintained, straight dirt road. Each tent had the shape of a pyramid atop a 16-foot square, and they were divided into three bedrooms and a kitchen by canvas hanging from cross beams. Each morning, Cap and I would pull up the shades, have breakfast, and follow a path for a half mile or so through a field, above rocky cliffs, eventually emerging at the end of Bonnet Shores, a private beach where we swam, body-surfed, played catch, and played various sorts of handball.

So how does this relate to an essay that is supposed to have something to do with phenology? Well, walking down to the beach day after day on that long ago but never forgotten summer, I saw my first goldfinch. I immediately recognized this bird, because it graced the cover of my first little bird book. Ever since, even though I rarely encountered goldfinches at home, whether in Rhode Island or Massachusetts, I have never failed to be amazed by this bird’s brilliant yellow body and its highly contrasting black cap and black wings.

Of course, now that we live in Sugar Hill, we have gold finches at the feeder in late winter, and we have them nesting in the Upper Meadow or flitting about the gardens throughout the summer. So, I think it quite appropriate to begin my list of “My favorite wings” with this bird that I have known and loved for nearly seventy years.

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1 Photos and text by Carl D. Martland, founding member of ACT, long-time resident of Sugar Hill, and author of Sugar Hill Days: What’s Happening in the Fields, Wetlands, and Forests of a Small New Hampshire Town on the Western Edge of the White Mountain. Quotations from his book and his journals indicate the dates of and the situations depicted in the photos.

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April 22, 2018, A male goldfinch has nearly come into his full courting plumage as it sits at our feeder.

Many birds have interesting wings, but to be included among my winged favorites, a bird requires something special. Evening grosbeaks certainly have lovely wings, but they are at best infrequent visitors, and their outsized beaks demand as much attention as their wings. The scarlet tanager has wings as delightful as the goldfinches – but when do you ever see one of them?

My second winged favorite, avian category, is therefore a well-known bird with proper phenological and behavioral characteristics. Known to authors of guidebooks as “redwinged blackbirds,” they are known to everyone else in New England as “redwings.” The first males are likely to show up while there is still snow on the ground:

March 22, 2023, 36 degrees, light clouds. The first redwing flew into the big spruce, its red patches brilliant in the morning sun! The ground is still 95% snow-covered and the pond is still iced over, but the ice is softening.

Within a week or so, the first female stops by, and soon flocks of redwings join their cousins foraging around the feeder:

April 4, 2023, cloudy, 11:00 to noon. Now that the females have arrived, the flock of blackbirds using our feeder has doubled in size. Today, there are at least seventy of them, including at least 30 redwings, 15 grackles, and a half dozen cowbirds.

The males then go to work establishing territories around the pond. These birds will eventually build nests in the cattails that line the pond, and a half-dozen or more are resident most summers. So, the males have two big tasks: first stake out and defend a territory and then attract a female. And this is where those red patches lined with a thin yellow stripe become important:

April 29, 2020, 42 degrees, sunny, beautiful! Two redwing blackbirds faced off high in the tops of two naked larch trees on the Point. They seemed to be working on boundary lines, as they fluttered about each other. Then they landed, one in each of the larch trees. The one in the highest perch looked down on the other and flashed its red stripes – take that! The other meekly sat still, showing only yellow and, after a silent minute or two, flew off.

By early June, redwings are busy feeding their hatchlings and chasing away me and any other intruders:

June 5, 2010.  The redwings didn’t like my getting too close to their nests. First they called – “tsi – tsi- tsi – tsi” – from the tops of trees by the pond. Then they hovered over my head, still calling. Finally, they buzzed me.

When I walk out along the dam in July, I enjoy watching and listening to the proud males uttering their strange calls from the tops of the little clumps of willows and birches. They flash their reddest at me, not knowing that I merely want to see their colors, not to steal their babies. With luck, I have been able to get a couple of photos showing the angry male in flight.

June 3, 2015. An angry redwing almost flew into me as I walked along the dam.

 My Favorite Wings: Dragonflies

If you sit by a pond on a sunny afternoon, you almost certainly see dragonflies patrolling the shoreline or resting on low vegetation near the shore. Many species have spots or splotches of color that are quite beautiful, but my two favorites are ones that a) I see every summer by the pond and b) frequently pose for a photo.

The 12-spotted skimmer is nearly three inches long, and the twelve black and white spots on each pair of wings make it one of the most photogenic dragonflies. Although I seldom find more than a couple around the pond at any given time, I usually see one or two of them at least once a week during mid-summer.

July 8, 2018, 85 degrees, nice breeze, perfect! The first D-Day skimmer flew by right as I was sitting on the frog bench starting this entry in my journal. Yes, I know it’s a 12-spotted skimmer, but I like to use the name that Nancy gave it twenty years ago. She said their wing stripes reminded her of the easily recognizable black and white stripes the allies painted on the wings and gliders that took part in the D-Day Invasion back in 1944.

July 9, 2022. 12-spotted skimmer perched on a twig at the edge of the pond.

The male widow skimmer, which is about the same size as the 12-spotted, also has black and white bands on its wings. Each male will define a territory perhaps a dozen yards long along the dam. He will fly back and forth a few times, then land for a minute or more just to see if any competitors might try to horn in. Unlike the 12-spotted, he is just as likely to land on wildflowers or grass as well as on twigs overhanging the pond.

Males of both species will aggressively defend their territories against other males, creating an exciting blur of color as they circle each other until one of them gives up and flies away.

July 16, 2019, 75 degrees, late morning, some sun, breeze, great day for me and the dragonflies! Two 12-spotted skimmers engaged in a long-lasting dog fight over the reeds, back and forth all along the dam. Perhaps like me, they’ve only seen one female 12-spotted this year. Two widow skimmer males also dogfighting along the dam, flying out over the dam and then in and out of the cattails.

July 9, 2019, 100pm, partly cloudy, warm, dry. I spent a happy hour and a half taking photos of insects, including a widow skimmer that repeatedly returned to pose on the top of the lupine after flying around its territory midway down the dam. Later, a 12-spotted skimmer flew in and out of the opening at our end of the pond.

I know that my fascination with dragonflies is unusual, and I am happy that my wife views this as one of my interesting eccentricities rather than an indication that I should seek professional help. Since this is an essay about “MY favorite wings,” it probably doesn’t matter whether or not she or my other readers will be familiar with MY selections. Perhaps my photos will encourage some to spend a few hours out by a pond some sunny afternoon in the hopes of seeing these skimmers.  Good places to look include Coffin Pond, the pond by the parking lot for the trails in Bretzfelder Park, and the ponds you come across in the Sugar Hill Town Forest or the Scotland Brook Audubon Sanctuary in Landaff.

My Favorite Wings: Butterflies

As was the case with dragonflies, my favorite butterflies need to be common and willing to pose. I could include the monarch in this category, but then I would be highlighting what is likely the most popular butterfly in America. Instead, I’ll choose the silver-spotted skipper and the white admiral, two butterflies that are commonly seen on our lawn, by the pond, over our gardens and in the meadows. 

There is a back story that makes the silver-spotted skipper one of my favorites. Back more than twenty years ago, I spent a couple of weeks painting the trim on our house, a task that involved a great deal of scraping. In order to keep bits of old paint out of the lawn, I would spread a drop cloth below the ladder before going to work. One day, when I came down, I was distressed to see that somehow flakes of old paint had ended up stuck on the wings of a poor butterfly. I regretted scraping right next to wet paint, and I hoped that I hadn’t doomed the poor creature. At least it was able to fly off. It was only days later, when I saw several more of these butterflies, that I realized what I had taken to be a paint chip was in fact an irregular white marking on the underside of its wings. These butterflies especially love to get nectar from Joe Pye Weed, and they usually sit with their wings up, thereby highlighting the white spots.

August 2, 2019, 80 degrees, sunny, not so humid. At 230, bullfrogs gave a brief rumbling chorus. Dragonflies and Damselflies are very active. I took photos of silver-spotted skippers and other butterflies on the Joe Pye Weed.

White admirals are large, dark butterflies easily identified by the contrasting white band across the top side of its wings. From a distance, they hardly look like a nominee for “My favorite wings.” However, up close, you can see brilliant blue and orange spots as well as variations on the dark blacks and browns.  I have seen them as early as mid-April, but they are more commonly seen in mid-summer. Like the silver-spotted skipper, they love the Joe Pye Weed, and I often see both species in our large patch of this voluminous wildflower late summer.

July 3, 2020. White admiral, showing blues and oranges of wing tops.

July 8, 2019. White admiral, showing orange and bits of blues on the underside of its wings.

Keep your eyes open, and you may come across one or both of these butterflies when you walk through a field or along a rural road bordered by wildflowers. Maybe you’ll come across a different butterfly with even more beautiful colors that you could choose to be “one of YOUR favorite wings!”

Phenological Phacts and Photos w/ Carl Martland / July 2023

Frog and Toad at the Pond

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

Frog Waits

Frog sits at the edge of the pond, his legs splayed out to either side, only his head out of the water. Motionless and silent for minutes at a time, looking straight at the shore, he waits patiently – for what? Lunch? Probably not, as he had feasted the last several days on black flies, mayflies and other insects suddenly so numerous at the edge of the pond.

Perhaps he’s thinking of the day last year when one of the little yellow snails slithered right up his belly, nearly to his mouth. Fortunately for the snail, Frog had never developed a taste for food that requires a can opener. 

More likely, he’s wondering what’s delaying his long-time friend Toad, who joins him every year when Toad and his relatives came to the pond for what they call their “family reunion.”  Toad always was one for the first to make it to the pond, because he so much wanted to see his friend Frog.

After a while, Frog gives his special call: instead of the single “plonk” that he and the other green frogs normally make, Frog goes “plonk – plonk - - - PLONK.” If Toad were anywhere nearby, he would recognize the call and head directly toward Frog.

Frog ignores the mayfly nymph that crawled up beside him, gives another of his special calls, and continues to wait.

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1 Photos and text by Carl D. Martland, founding member of ACT, long-time resident of Sugar Hill, and author of Sugar Hill Days: What’s Happening in the Fields, Wetlands, and Forests of a Small New Hampshire Town on the Western Edge of the White Mountain. Quotations from his book and his journals indicate the dates of and the situations depicted in the photos.

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June 16, 2018. Green frog with mayfly nymph at the edge of the pond.

Toad Hears the Call

 It was just a week or two ago that Toad had been rudely awakened from his long winter slumber by something totally unexpected and unknown. Was it an earthquake? Was it the end of the world? Why was the ground shaking? And why was a huge hand coming down into the damp soil, wrapping around him, and then dropping him off to the side of the nice open area where he’d buried himself to sleep through the long winter?

Toad had managed to stumble a few feet into the tall grass, where he quivered for several minutes before realizing that he was unhurt and in no danger. Had he understood English, he would have understood what had happened, for Nancy had shouted out to Carl:

“Wow! I’ve been turning over the garden, and I came across a buried toad! Fortunately, I missed hitting it with my trowel, and was able to lift it out, brush off some of the dirt, and place it at the edge of the meadow.”

Today, Toad is finally starting to feel himself. He’d been able to regain his strength by resting under a brushpile, where he’d easily been able to find plenty to eat. Now it is time to head for the Pond for the big family gathering. Probably Frog is already there.

As one of the family elders, Toad is responsible for knowing how to get to the Pond and when to begin the journey.  Before starting, he has to be sure that everyone is awake and able to proceed, and he wants to be sure that it is warm and wet enough for a comfortable trip. Who wants to be crawling through rough, cold, dry leaves and sticks for hours or days?

Today might be the day to start, but until he hears Frog’s special call, he won’t know exactly where to go. An hour passes, then another hour. Then suddenly, he hears Frog’s call, not just once but twice!

So now it is time to start. He gives his first trill of the season, a long, 15-second staccato trill, proud that his call is much longer and more remarkable than the feeble, throaty trills of the tree frogs. His trill is soon echoed by the other elders, and everyone realizes it’s time to head depart. 

Toad, having over-wintered nearby, is one of the first to reach the pond. After hopping onto a little mat made of fallen, floating cattails, he gives an exceptionally long and loud trill to let Frog know that he is back in town.

June 2, 2018. A toad trills from his perch on a clump of last year’s cattail fronds.

By the end of the day, a few others have joined Toad at the pond. They continue to trill, long after dusk, and more and more of their relatives join in. To be more precise, more and more of their male relatives join in, for the males are always the first to reach the Pond.  Therefore, it will take two or three days for everyone to gather at the Pond. Progress is also slow, because some of the toads are still groggy, others are unsure of where to go, and the youngest have yet to learn the wonders awaiting them.

Frog and Toad at the Pond

Who really knows how Frog and Toad communicate? Can Frog vary his “plonk” or Toad his trilling to convey their emotions? Can they communicate via subtle changes in expression? Or is eye contact enough? I have no idea how they do it, but do it they do![1]

When they meet in early June, Frog and Toad, like any old friends, presumably talk about their families, their adventures, their favorite food, and their acquaintances. Some of Frog’s children have grown up and acquired prime footage on the other side of the Pond. The youngest are still tadpoles that spent the winter under the ice, and Frog undoubtedly points them out to Toad when one of them happens to swim by.

June 17, 2018. One of the nearly three-inch long green frog tadpoles that overwintered in the Pond.

Frog fondly remembers his year as a tadpole, when all he had to do was swim around the pond with his pals, easily finding enough to eat simply by opening his mouth and too young and naïve to worry about the great blue herons or snapping turtles that periodically stop by for a meal.

Toad remembers nothing of what was barely a month that he spent as a tadpole. When hardly an inch long, he had to climb out of the pond along with hundreds of his cousins, cross the trail, and head off into the woods, unaware of the many dangers lurking there. Now, as an adult, he admits to Frog that he has no idea how or why he was one of the few that survived.

[1] For documentation of interactions between frogs and toads, see the excellent series of reports published by Arnold Lobel, beginning with Frog and Toad are Friends, Harpers & Row, 1970.

Toad Joins the Party

The next morning, Frog and Toad swap tales about encounters (actual, enhanced, and totally made-up) with turtles, trout, heron, kingfishers, and otters. But the trilling builds as more and more toads reach the pond, and Toad finally must tend to his duties. At least that is what Toad tells Frog. What he describes as a family reunion is more accurately described as a “party” and what will certainly appear to Frog and any other observers to be rather a wild one. Frog smiles, because he knows why Toad leaped so quickly and so excitedly into the water.

He watches Toad swim out to the middle of the pond, then back to a spot a few yards from the shore where he just hangs in the water, waiting. Waiting for what? Well, it doesn’t take much of a naturalist to answer that question, because he and all the other trilling males are waiting for the females to arrive. Toad has taken up a position as a sentry, hoping to be the first to see a female swimming in from the other side of the Pond. 

June 2, 2018, 75 degrees, partly cloudy. Toads trilled some yesterday, but much more today. There were many males, but only a few females, which may explain why their energy was so devoted to their loud trilling.


Although a few other males take up sentry positions across the cove, many more sit at the shoreline, trilling again and again. Frog sits in his usual spot, willing to stay close to the unruly mass of trilling toads in order to watch the courting drama unfolding all around him.

Finally, a female shows up. Toad knows it is a female, because she is so much larger than he is. She swims by, lets Toad approach, apparently likes what she sees in Toad, and accepts him as a mate. Toad settles on her broad back, wraps his arms around her, and waits for her to start laying eggs. They remain in this position for many minutes, and eventually she emits her eggs, which appear to be tiny dots along a pair of slim strands that are several feet long. From his position on her back, Toad emits a cloudy spray that will fertilize the eggs. Another male toad climbs on her back, but Toad doesn’t care – he hardly even notices when a third male grabs one of Toad’s legs as well as one of hers. With the weight of three males on her back, the clump of toads sinks two feet to the bottom of the pond. The males don’t even notice that they’re under water, but she has had enough. Since she is so much bigger and stronger, she simply pushes them all up for a gulp of air.

All around them, other couples and clumps of mating toads are madly circling in the water, while unattached males look for a chance to join in. The churning and the trilling continue until the pond finally falls silent around midnight.

June 19, 2006, hot, hazy and humid. The toads were partying today. One or more males would glom onto a female, and dozens of clumps of toads would roil the water all along the shore.

The next morning, the party continues, but Toad has had enough. He stops by for a final hour with Frog, then heads slowly back into the forest. They won’t meet again until next spring. Toad is exhausted, but happy to have spent time with Frog both before and after the “family reunion.”

Frog Watches and Waits

Frog is happy to have had time with Toad, but he is also happy that the rowdy toad family has gone.  The noise and turmoil of their parties is too much of a disruption to his quiet life at the edge of the pond. He is glad that frog families are less numerous and much more decorous than those of toads. He will have plenty of chances to find a mate over the next month or so, and meanwhile he can keep a watch over the tadpoles, which now are losing their tails and growing arms and legs.

June 22, 2018. A green frog sits at the edge of the pond, pondering who knows what?

Phenological Phacts and Photos w/ Carl Martland / May 2023

Thrice Willing Warbler

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

What’s in a Name? 

The warbler shown in the above photo, which is one of the most widely distributed warblers in North America, was once known as the Myrtle Warbler.  That name referred to its ability to eat the hard waxy fruits of crepe myrtle trees, giving these warblers a reliable food source for starting their northward migration. When they get to New England, they won’t find any crepe myrtle trees, but they will be able to eat similar fruits of the bayberry bushes found along the coast (fruits that we thought were useful only for making candles!).  Fortunately for its ability to enjoy its meals, its diet may be better once it reaches the tall spruces where it will spend the summer, as its Latin name setophagus coronata translates to something like “crowned moth-eater.”  

Myrtle warblers were once thought to be eastern cousins of the Audubon warblers found mostly in the western US.  However, observers discovered that the Myrtle and Audubon warblers interbreed where their ranges overlap, so scientists decided to classify them as varieties of a single species.  Well, fine and good; let the scientists do their job.  If two supposedly distinct species interbreed, then they cannot be separate species.

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1 Photos and text by Carl D. Martland, founding member of ACT, long-time resident of Sugar Hill, and author of Sugar Hill Days: What’s Happening in the Fields, Wetlands, and Forests of a Small New Hampshire Town on the Western Edge of the White Mountain. Quotations from his book and his journals indicate the dates of and the situations depicted in the photos.

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But who decided that “yellow-rumped warbler” would be their new name?  I admit that the yellow rump is diagnostic, but the photographs suggest that yellow-winged, white-throated, or black-masked warbler would have been nearly as descriptive and much more appropriate in polite company.   

May 9, 2015.  The bird formerly known as the “Myrtle Warbler” shows off its fine yellow wings, white throat, and black mask.   

Unfortunately, I must admit that I quite like names that help me identify birds that fly into the yard.  All warblers are small and flighty, and quite a few have black & white stripes broken up here and there with bits of yellow, but only the Myrtle and Audubon warblers have the yellow rump.  That much I can remember, and that is the only sure way that I can identify a yellow-rumped warbler without using a guidebook.  For example, the above photo shows an extraordinarily beautiful bird, but only a close comparison to the pictures in the guidebook convinced me that it was indeed a yellow-rumped warbler.  On the other hand, as soon as I managed to take the photo below, I knew that I was looking at a yellow-rumped warbler, albeit from a rather embarrassing perspective. 

October 5, 2016.  Is this how a bird wants to be remembered?  Probably not, but this is the view that confirms that it is a yellow-rumped warbler. 

Females and juveniles are always less colorful than the males that we see during the spring migration, so the butt photo is even more necessary to identify these warblers in the fall. 

October 19, 2020.  I took several pictures and a video of a yellow-rumped warbler foraging in the leaves on the front lawn.  When it poked its head down into the grass, its wings rose up, clearly exposing the yellow rump that is barely visible in this photo. 

Thrice Willing Warbler  

In May, birdwatchers in New England look forward to the spring migration of warblers.  In Boston, they – the birdwatchers and the warblers – flock to places like Mount Auburn Cemetery.  The warblers flit about high in the trees, while the birdwatchers crane their necks as they scan the emerging foliage hoping for a glimpse through their binoculars of the birds that they can hear singing.  Serious birdwatchers can identify the species just by hearing the song, and they seem to be happy just to hear the music and capture a few glimpses of the birds.    

The other day, my neighbor Rebecca Brown said that she had heard two types of warblers singing in the woods by the beginning of May: black-throated greens and black-throated blues.  I probably will hear one or both of them if I spend some time in the woods, but I certainly don’t expect to see any of them.  Why not?  Because I haven’t seen either of these two species more than a few times in 25 years in Sugar Hill.  Although they are willing to stop by on their way to Canada, they usually stay hidden high in the trees.  

Yellow-rumped warblers are not only willing to stop by, they are willing to be seen, and they are willing to pose for the photographer.   I have frequently seen them amidst a tangle of branches in a clump of alders, willows, or birches.  If I stay still, they may stay in one place long enough to get a photo, possibly even one where the bird is only partially obscured by the branches. 

May 12, 2017.  A yellow-rumped warbler landed in the hedge and stayed there long enough for me to take a photo.   

What is unusual about yellow-rumped warblers is that they also will perch in the open, perhaps on some cattails by the pond, on a roof, or on the lawn.   Look for them through mid-May, but don’t expect to see them in the summer.  By the end of May, they will be raising their young deep in the spruce/fir forests of Canada, and they won’t be back around here until late summer.  

May 4, 2019.  A yellow-rumped warbler perched on the cattails at the edge of the pond, and it stayed there long enough for me to take this photo. 

Final Note 

Before checking this little essay for the usual errors in spelling, punctuation, or grammar, I discovered that I may actually have learned something from my literary efforts: 

May 5, 2023.  A warbler rustled about in the willow clump by the edge of the pond, looking exactly like one of the photos I had just included in my most recent PPP draft.  If I hadn’t just pontificated on the yellow-rumped warbler’s beautiful colors, I never would have imagined that I was looking at one of these poorly named birds.

Phenological Phacts and Photos w/ Carl Martland / April 2023

Spying on Sparrows

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

The snow finally disappeared after three straight days of brilliant sunshine. Rising temperatures and strong winds dried out most of the yard and the meadows. The ice is gone from the pond, and the bird feeders must now be taken in at night. Robins and redwings are here, neighbors have heard woodcock, and new birds arrive every day.

The first tree sparrow showed up this year on April 3rd, and several song sparrows stopped by a day later.  Unlike chickadees and titmice, these sparrows ignored the feeders and foraged beside a couple of juncos, searching for the seeds on the ground.  Of course, since this is the North Country, I need to remind you that spring may not fully arrive until late April or even the first week of May. Tree sparrows and song sparrows won’t mind the snow, so long as they can still find some seeds.

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1 Photos and text by Carl D. Martland, founding member of ACT, long-time resident of Sugar Hill, and author of Sugar Hill Days: What’s Happening in the Fields, Wetlands, and Forests of a Small New Hampshire Town on the Western Edge of the White Mountain. Quotations from his book and his journals indicate the dates of and the situations depicted in the photos.

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April 16, 2018.  Song Sparrows have stripes converging to a spot on their breast, their beaks are dark, and they have white stripes above their eyes.

April 16, 2018.  Tree Sparrows have breast spots on a clear breast, cinnamon-colored caps, and bi-colored beaks.

The song sparrows particularly like the area right below the feeder, because that is where the most seeds piled up over the winter.  Of course, the husks of the sunflower seeds far outnumber the remaining unopened seeds, and that is probably why the chickadees and titmice prefer to go to the feeder, where there is always a fresh supply of seeds.  I don’t know why the sparrows don’t follow suit.  Perhaps they prefer something other than sunflower seeds, perhaps they avoid crowded lunchrooms, or perhaps they can’t stand the smell of red squirrels that surely lingers about the feeder.

In any case, the song sparrows stay on the ground.  Although I have watched the birds at and below the feeder for nearly 25 years, I just this week noticed an unusual behavior. Most birds peck among the grass with their beaks, searching for an unopened sunflower seed or for one of the smaller, round seeds that the winter regulars discard. The song sparrows have a more effective method. They rapidly scratch with their feet for half a second, spraying the detritus about, and allowing them to pick out the best seeds. That is just another example of why bird-watching is much more than compiling a life list of the birds you have seen.

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Sparrows Month by Month

Tree sparrows are the only sparrows that I have seen here in the middle of winter.  However, this is the northernmost part of their winter range, and they may not be regular visitors until late March.

December 16, 2017.  I took a photo of a tree sparrow at the feeder.  [This is the only photo I have taken of a tree sparrow between mid-April and mid-December.]

January 6, 2016.  A pair of tree sparrows and a pair of juncos were enjoying the sunflower seeds spread out under the feeder. [I took more photos of tree sparrows on 1/7, 2/9, and 2/11/16.]

March 28, 2016.  Tree sparrows are the only sparrows that visit our feeder in winter, and they will be in Canada by the end of April.

Song sparrows are the next to arrive.  I have seen them for the first time as early as March 11th and as late as mid-April. When they first arrive, they sometimes seem rather sluggish:

April 3, 2022, 50 degrees at 4 pm. The first song sparrow of the year stood motionless by the feeder for more than five minutes, allowing me to take several photos. Finally, it managed to take one step to the right and snatch a seed. Then it walked and pecked its way toward the pole that holds up the feeder, where it chased another sparrow away.

At about the same time that tree sparrows depart for Canada, chipping sparrows and white-throated sparrows show up looking for seeds and insects. Some of them will be summer residents, and they will soon join the song sparrows in looking for places to build their nests.

April 21, 2003. Today was our first sighting of many birds:  a flicker, tree swallows (who immediately checked out the house by the pond), a white-throated sparrow, a chipping sparrow, and an eastern kingbird.

May 4, 2019. Out past the birches behind the screen house, a white-throated sparrow foraged in the weeds. I heard its easily identifiable call but only managed one picture in which the bird was mostly obscured by grass and protected by its standard-issue sparrow camouflage.

I’m always excited to see the spectacular colors of a mature white-throated sparrow. Yellow spots just behind its bill provide a striking contrast to its crisp white, black and grey stripes.

White Throated Sparrow,
April 28, 2016

Although I only see them briefly as they migrate in the spring and the fall, I frequently hear them all summer calling loudly and clearly what Roger Tory Petersen characterized as “Old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody.”

June 28, 2005, 85 degrees, hot hazy, and humid. Walking through the Lower 40, I heard hermit thrush, white-throated sparrows, and winter wrens singing their spectacular and easily recognized songs, but I only saw phoebes and crows.

July 12, 2000, (partly cloudy, 70 degrees). I followed the power lines down to a spot where a large rock provided a seat and a chance to enjoy the view over a field filled with daisies and buttercups toward the green slopes of Garnet Hill.  On the way back, I heard a white-throated sparrow singing his “Old Sam Peabody, Peabody” song from the top of a 15-foot snag – very loud and triumphant, like something out of Aida.

Although chipping sparrows do nest in Sugar Hill, we’re most likely to see them when they arrive in the spring or when they’re getting ready to migrate in the summer. Like tree sparrows, they have a rufous crown and a chest spot, but the chipping sparrows are smaller and lack the breast stripes. I most commonly see them searching for insects on the patio or along the edge of our driveway.

June 27, 2022, 80 degrees, partly cloudy after morning rain. A chipping sparrow foraged on the patio, either unaware or not bothered by the kestrel sitting in one of its usual perches on a dead branch at the top of the large maple at the corner of Post and Pearl Lake Roads.

August 15, 2015. Chipping Sparrows often patrol the edge of our gravel driveway, which appears to offer a tasty variety of fast foods.

The resident sparrows make their nests in May, and by the end of June, they can be seen flying around with food for their brood.

June 24, 2018, 65 degrees, cloudy, still, noon. …At 1:35 pm, while sitting on the steps of the screen house, I managed to get a photo of a song sparrow with a winged insect in its beak. It sat in one spot for several minutes, allowing me time to find it in the camera, no small feat since the bird was 80 feet away amidst leaves.

June 16, 2016.  I took a photo of a song sparrow that had found a morsel for lunch.  This bird was kind enough to pose for me on a dead branch not too far away.

By the first week of July, the young sparrows have fledged, so now they and their parents are much more likely to be seen.  For a while, the youngsters are sluggish and very vulnerable, because it takes a while to learn to fly and to realize the dangers that they face.

July 6, 2001. 64 degrees high! Cloudy. A juvenile song sparrow was sitting listlessly – petrified of being out? It didn’t move more than once every 2-3 minutes, and then only about 6 inches.

July 7, 2006. In the afternoon, I worked clearing a trail on the Pearl Lake Road side of Creamery Pond. While sitting on rocks at the edge of the marsh, I saw song sparrows in front of me, white-throated sparrows singing in trees off to my right, and two sparrows coming right to a little clearing just a few feet away. They were as surprised to see me as I was to see them!

July 10, 2018. …When I swam up to the Point, a song sparrow flitting about in the nearby alder clump ignored me, though I was less than ten feet away! Apparently, the bird doesn’t expect and therefore doesn’t respond to a potential threat coming from the pond.

One year, I actually found a song sparrow’s nest, so I was able to record the entire sequence of events:

July 11, 2004, 75 degrees, partly cloudy, beautiful. I found a nest 1.5 feet off the ground in dense brush; it had a 3-inch hemispherical opening that was lined with fine grass.  There were three light brown eggs with dark brown spots, approximately ½ inch long.  On the 14th, there were only two eggs left. A sparrow-sized bird was sitting on the nest on July 15th, and there were still two eggs left. I think it was a song sparrow that was defending an area about 20 feet around its nest. At one point it chased a common yellowthroat away and looked over at the nest to make sure all was OK.  It didn’t go back to its nest while I watched, nor did it fly at me.

July 22, 2004, 80 degrees, humid. There are three bluebird babies in the front house.  Song sparrows have a nest by the black raspberries. Mom is in the nest with two recently hatched youngsters.

July 29, 2004, 80 degrees, partly cloudy, beautiful. The baby song sparrows are starting to get feathers. The baby bluebirds are much larger, and they are starting to show some blue.

August 1, 2004. The baby sparrows are alive and covered with down.

That was my last record of that family, but I’ll close out with a couple of subsequent observations of what these sparrows might have been doing for the next couple of weeks:

August 11, 2009. Two song sparrows were feeding on the lawn in the backyard. The adult would catch a bug, while junior begged for food. When Mom (Dad?) caught one, junior would walk over, tilt his (her?) head back, open wide – and Mom would stick the bug in his beak.

August 19, 2018, 76 degrees, partly cloudy, light breeze, beautiful! This morning I took photos and a video of a juvenile savannah sparrow preening with its notched tail spread as it sat in an apple tree in the Upper Meadow.

August 19, 2018. Song sparrows and savannah sparrows both nest in our region, and their young are similar in appearance. Another photo confirmed that this was a savannah sparrow because it had a notched tail. This youngster was just grooming itself, neither looking for insects nor seeking a bite of the apple.

By the end of August, the summer residents have departed, and we start to see the migrating sparrows returning from Canada, but that story can better be told when the asters are blooming, and the leaves are falling.

Phenological Phacts and Photos w/ Carl Martland / March 2023

Hear that? It’s a woodpecker!

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

On a winter day, while walking through the woods, the sounds and worries of civilized life drift away. With the leaves gone, you can see hundreds of trees rising up the hillsides, and the snow dampens whatever noises are made by an occasional gust of wind. Most of the birds have retreated, if not to the south, then to the vicinity of their favorite feeders. A crow may call in the distance, but that really doesn’t qualify as bird song. Turkeys may well have crossed the trail here and there, but probably you won’t see them, and you certainly won’t hear them making any kind of sound that would be mistaken for singing. We trudge through the snow in silence, admiring the bark of the birches and beeches, searching for animal tracks – not at all bothered by the stillness. And then, we hear the distinctive rat-tat-tat of a woodpecker. Maybe just one short sequence, maybe prolonged tapping repeated again and again. At first, the sound may be indistinct, and you’re not even sure that you heard it. You stop, you listen, then it’s repeated, and you say “Did you hear that? It’s a woodpecker!”

But where is it? You stay still, hear it again, and move closer to where it is pecking. You stop, look up toward the top of that tall poplar – no, not there; is it on a different tree, or is it just hiding on the other side? Ah, there it is!

March 18, 2016. I snowshoed into Foss Woods to the trunk of a fallen poplar that I call Carl’s Seat, only to find that it fails as a seat in two feet of snow. I had to go a little further to find a higher log over the trail where I could eat lunch and, for at least a half hour, listen to a pileated woodpecker knocking very loudly once or twice a minute, first from a perch by the landing and then from a closer perch by the spring houses. I didn’t see it except when it twice flew from one tree to another, its feathers brilliant against the clear blue sky.

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1 Photos and text by Carl D. Martland, founding member of ACT, long-time resident of Sugar Hill, and author of Sugar Hill Days: What’s Happening in the Fields, Wetlands, and Forests of a Small New Hampshire Town on the Western Edge of the White Mountain. Quotations from his book and his journals indicate the dates of and the situations depicted in the photos.

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Big Brother or the Twins?

In the North Country, three species of woodpecker are common. The largest, of course, is the magnificent pileated woodpecker, the largest remaining woodpecker after the disgraceful extermination of the even more spectacular ivory-billed woodpecker more than a century ago.

March 9, 2022. A week ago, Jim Keefe asked me if I’d seen the pileated woodpecker drilling holes into a dead tree near the end of Post Road. I hadn’t, but today, I couldn’t miss the loud pecking of what likely was that very bird as it expanded a large hole in the maple at our end of Post Road. It ignored me as I took photos and a video showing chips flying as it ducked its head in and out.

January 31, 2022, 15 degrees, clear. The snow was only 8-12 inches deep, so I just wore my high boots, skipped the snow shoes, and headed out to Foss Woods. I heard three woodpeckers and took a photo of clippings scattered by a pileated, but didn’t see any. The fresh snow was quite beautiful.

This woodpecker’s call must have been the model for the Woody Woodpecker call recognized by all of us who once watched the Saturday morning comics. I know, I know. kids no longer have to wait until Saturday morning to watch the comics, fearing that their father will command them to “Turn off the TV and go outside and play.” They can watch whatever they want, whenever they want, so long as they can get online. However, I’m leaving this sentence as it is, because it will be well understood by anyone who qualifies for Medicare.

The other two common species appear to be twins. Both downy woodpeckers and hairy woodpeckers have similar black & white markings, and the males of both species have a distinctive red spot on their heads. The guidebooks tell us that the best way to distinguish them is by size, for the hairy is much larger than the downy (9.25 inches long versus 6.75 inches). That fact may help if one of them poses at the feeder while another hungry bird agrees to serve as a point of comparison. However, relative size is pretty much useless if you’re craning your neck to look up toward a single bird pounding away at a dead branch near the top of an 80-foot poplar that’s just the other side of the brook!

January 8, 2021. One of the woodpecker twins flew into the feeder, and at first I wasn’t sure which one. However, since it wasn’t too much larger than the chickadee that conveniently flew in as I took this photo, I figured it must be a downy rather than a hairy.

Each of the twins has pretty much the same pattern of colors, although the downy usually has more white showing on its wings. The main distinguishing feature for the hairy is its longer bill, while the main distinguishing feature for the downy is the bristly tuft of yellow hair by the end of its bill. If the bird is close, you may be able to see one of these features, but I find I need a good photo to be sure.

February 2, 2018, 20 degrees, partly cloudy and clearing. Five inches of snow last night, making a total of a foot of soft snow atop the frozen remnants of January’s. A downy woodpecker perched, fluffed out against the cold next to my trail out to the Lower Meadow. I took a photo that showed the yellow tuft by its bill.

April 28, 2021. A female hairy woodpecker made a rare landing on our back lawn today. I knew it was a female, because it lacked the red spot on its head, and I knew it wasn’t a downy, because it was almost as large as a blue jay that foraged about ten feet away. The photo also shows the absence of a yellow tuft at the base of the bill.

New Neighbors?

New Hampshire is just past the usual range of the two other woodpeckers that are common in the northeast: the red-headed woodpecker and the red-bellied woodpecker. Both of these are colorful, easily identified as woodpeckers, and similar in size to the hairy woodpecker. I have never seen a red-bellied woodpecker anywhere in our region, and I have seen only one red-headed woodpecker that happened to sit on a granite fence post by the end of the driveway nearly twenty years ago. In Indiana, I’ve often seen them both, usually by the feeders at a Nature Center or along one of the trails in a state park. I decided to include these two birds in this photo essay because they could soon become common in the North Country. According to my 2003 edition of The Sibley Field Guide to Birds, the red-headed woodpecker is common as far east as western Vermont, less than a hundred miles away. The red-bellied is even closer to the North Country, as the same guide shows it to be common below the notches and rare in the northernmost parts of New Hampshire.

March 27, 2019, McCormick’s Creek State Park, Indiana. The red-bellied woodpecker certainly has a red spot on its head, but at most a hint of red on its belly. So much for being a well-named bird!

November 29, 2015, Shakamak State Park, Indiana. The red-headed woodpecker certainly displays our patriotic colors, but in France, whose flag is so much simpler than ours, this would be the national bird.

These two species are not only close, they have been getting closer and closer for decades. Before David Sibley became the most trusted name in birds, that honor went to Roger Tory Peterson, whose Field Guide to the Birds was first published in 1934. When I was growing up, my family had the 45th printing of the guide, which is what I still use to keep track of my life list. That guide, which had only been updated through 1947, showed the red-bellied coming only as far north as Delaware and the red-headed coming only as close as western New York and Massachusetts. If their expansion into northern New England continues, we may soon hear that they have made it to the North Country. Until then, enjoy Big Brother and the Twins, even if we can’t always tell which twin we’re looking at!

February 6, 2021. Hairy or Downy? Who cares?

Phenological Phacts and Photos w/ Carl Martland / February 2023

Finches at Your Feeder

Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”

The Finch Families

Even small children know about goldfinches, and anyone with a bird feeder in the north country knows about purple finches and house finches. But did you know that the much larger evening grosbeaks are also finches? Or that, in addition to the small birds willing to be so named, the finch family also includes the similarly sized pine siskins and redpolls?

I have previously written about grosbeaks, so now I’ll focus on the smaller ones, which are the ones we are most apt to see at our feeders. Goldfinches, pine siskins and redpolls are member of the genus Carduelis, while the purple and house finches are members of the genus Carpodacus. All of these, along with the grosbeaks, are part of the Fringillidae family that most of us refer to simply as the “finch family”, being careful not to drift into a discussion of the Atticus branch of the altogether different Finch family featured in To Kill a Mockingbird.

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1 Photos and text by Carl D. Martland, founding member of ACT, long-time resident of Sugar Hill, and author of Sugar Hill Days: What’s Happening in the Fields, Wetlands, and Forests of a Small New Hampshire Town on the Western Edge of the White Mountain. Quotations from his book and his journals indicate the dates of and the situations depicted in the photos.

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Feeder Favorites

Watching birds at the feeder is one of the things that define North County winters for me. I start every cold day by pulling on my fleece-lined jeans, and I start every evening sipping a hot drink by the wood stove. I enjoy the clear views of the mountains, the swirling snows blowing over frozen field, and moon shadows cast over the snow-covered landscape. But, what is most relevant to this series of ramblings about phenological phenomena, is that I enjoy watching the activity at the bird feeder while eating my breakfast or getting a second cup of coffee:

January 29, 2015, minus 6 degrees at 715am, brilliant sunshine! Today was the first day this year that I’ve seen gold finches at the feeder – four males in their winter plumage. Also the usual half dozen chickadees, a lone and perhaps lonely redpoll, and a blue jay. After preparing my breakfast of blueberries and home-made granola, I sat by the window for twenty minutes looking at the feeder, enjoying eating my “bird food” while the birds ate theirs.

As I look through my journals, I see that the finches generally don’t come to the feeder until mid- to late-January. Goldfinches are usually the first, then the purple finches and still later for siskins and redpolls:

January 15, 2018, 12 degrees, 3pm. All of the local birds came to the feeder for breakfast: five gold finches, a half dozen juncos, a brilliant purple finch, a couple of chickadees, a blue jay and a white-breasted nuthatch. Still no pine siskins this year.

Some days are notable for the arrival of a flock that includes dozens of small birds that take turns at the feeder, bounce back and forth between the feeder and the nearby trees, and scavenge for the seeds that I’ve thrown out on the snow. Is there any reason for this? I don’t know, but the following entry seems relevant, since right now I’m sitting by the wood stove, trying to stay warm on this day when the temperature started out at 23 below:

February 15, 2016, minus 14 at 9am. The best group of finches we have yet seen gathered today at the feeder. A dozen goldfinches, a dozen purple finches, plus a couple of chickadees and a white-breasted nuthatch. I got a photo showing 26 birds on and around the feeder. Yesterday was the coldest day of the winter (minus 21 in the morning; high of minus 4), so I wondered if the large assemblage of small birds was related to the cold.

I think I’ll make sure the feeder is full tomorrow morning!

February 15, 2016, minus 14 at 9am. The best group of finches we have yet seen gathered today at the feeder. A dozen goldfinches, a dozen purple finches, plus a couple of chickadees and a white-breasted nuthatch.

Which Finch is That?

Male goldfinches and redpolls are easy to identify. Goldfinches have their ostentatious yellow and black coloring and redpolls have their distinctive yellow bill and red cap.

Male Goldfinch, February 5, 2022

Male Redpoll, January 27, 2015

Female goldfinches are also readily identified since they, like Victorian ladies, generally appear for dinner with their well-dressed male escort.

The other finches can be difficult to distinguish. I have always had the most trouble with purple finches and house finches, which seem very similar to the naked eye, and I have even confused them with red polls:

April 28, 2015. I wondered if this "purple finch" was a red poll because of what appeared to be a red cap – but after looking more closely at the photo and checking the guidebook, I realized it was a house finch!

February 8, 2022. The male house finch certainly appears to sport the same brilliant colors of the purple finch, but a good photo will show that he has larger brown areas on his head and brown stripes rather than continued rosy colors on his undersides.

February 5, 2022. The male purple finch is clearly more colorful than his house finch cousin, especially when you have a good look at its rosy breast.

Although the males of these two species may easily be mistaken for each other, at least you know they are most likely to be either a purple finch or a house finch. The females are harder to identify. Not only are similar to each other, they are similar to sparrows and other small brown birds that my friend Tony refers to as “Little Brown Jobs.”

Pine Siskins, February 26, 2022. The yellow tinged wings are the best identification for the male, but the colors are not always easy to see. The female is pretty inconspicuous, with only her white wing bars to offset her otherwise drab appearance.

Female Purple Finch, March 18, 2022. Her bold, white head stripes and short, well-defined dark streaks distinguish her from her drabber house finch cousin who lacks the head streaks and whose breast has blurred, gray streaks.

The purple finch is the state bird of New Hampshire, and I would have no quarrel with that selection even if I only knew about its remarkable coloration. However, as I learned more than twenty years ago, this bird can really sing:

April 7-8, 2001. The snow was almost to my knees in the backyard when I filled the feeders. I went snowshoeing in the Lower 40, which was very tough in spots where the corn snow gave no support and I’d sink in 12-14 inches – too tiring to be pleasant. A few birds were around, including a purple finch whose song was so splendid and so varied that I mistook it for an entire flock of songbirds.

(Please forgive this reminder that we could well be tromping through two feet of snow for another two months.)

Finch Behavior

Birds, like the rest of us in the North Country, can be classified into various categories for planning purposes. Turkeys, like some of our more reclusive neighbors, wander around through their own haunts, too proud to be seen scavenging food at what they perhaps view as a tourist traps. Chickadees, titmice and blue jays seem to drop in for the season, perhaps securing their winter residence through the avian equivalent of AirBnB. I see these birds nearly every day, flying between the feeder and the nearby “Big Willow”, tall spruce, or alder clumps. Woodpeckers and nuthatches also seem to stay for the season, but they are more likely to be seen in the trees than at the feeder. A few birds, notably cardinals, drop in for a few days, never staying very long by the feeder, and often alone, like someone who came north only to cross off another 4000-footer before heading back to Boston. And then there’s the avian equivalent of leaf-peepers on tour buses, the flocks of hungry birds that drop in from time to time, flitting here and there, eating up everything in sight, and then, summoned by their tour guide, suddenly rising up and disappearing. Who knows where they go next? Who knows when the next busload will show up? Bohemian Waxwings are the most extreme example of the tour bus bird: they travel through the North Country in the dead of winter in flocks of a dozen or more – but I have only ever seen a couple of such flocks in Sugar Hill.

Goldfinches frequently are winter residents, often seen in pairs at the feeder, and some may stay year-round. Purple finches are more apt to travel in small flocks of less than a dozen birds, and they are likely to hang around only for a couple of weeks in late winter. According to the guidebooks, house finches, which also travel in small flocks, are supposed to be more common than their purple cousins. However, in my experience, purple finches drop by for a week or two most winters, whereas house finches are rarely seen.

Redpolls are clearly among the tour bus birds, as they are seldom seen alone, they don’t show up every year, and sometimes they travel in huge flocks:

March 22, 2011: yesterday a flock of sixty redpolls was in the back yard by the feeder and the “Big Willow”. Today, the flock was more than twice that big.

March 21, 2022: a flock of fifty redpolls was active in the back yard today.

Pine siskins, like redpolls, don’t show up every year, and when they do, it’s generally just a pair or two that are travelling along with a larger group of the other small finches. If you don’t look closely, you may not even know that they are there.

March 7, 2022. A pair of pine siskins has joined a flock of gold finches seeking bird seed amid the leaf litter below the feeder. The female siskin is in the upper left of the photo; note her nondescript brown head and her clear white wingbars. The male tried to escape this photo op, but his blurred image can’t hide the yellow coloring in its wings. On the right, a couple of female or juvenile goldfinches have found some seeds.

According to my records, the best time to see flocks of finches is between mid-February and mid-March, so fill the feeders full of fine finch food and keep an eye on the feeder!

February 5, 2022. Finches by the feeder – a common sight every winter!

Postscript: I finished this essay yesterday, sitting for hours in the warmth of the wood stove on the day that began at 23 below and ended with a high of minus three degrees. I followed my own advice by filling the feeders and keeping close watch at the kitchen window. Sure enough, just as described above in my journal entry following a bitterly cold day in February 2016, today was the best bird day of the year. This year’s first redpoll, the first goldfinch, and the first two male cardinals joined six chickadees, four titmice, a female cardinal, a couple of white-breasted nuthatches, and a downy woodpecker at the feeder.