Phenological Phacts and Photos with Carl Martland / June 2025

Before the Lupine

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).”

Lupine Madness

By mid-June, fields in Sugar Hill are ablaze with vast swaths of color. Visitors from near and far are drawn to our Lupine Festival hoping to see vast multi-colored blankets of lupine folding over our hillsides. This is certainly one of our small town’s claims to fame, perhaps not quite in the same league with Polly’s Pancakes, because the lupine extravaganza only lasts a couple of weeks, whereas the maple syrup flows over the pancakes throughout the year.

Visitors who come to Sugar Hill every year to enjoy the floral spectacle likely have lupine, Sugar Hill, and Polly’s permanently linked in their minds. But those of us who live here know that the lupine fields, no matter how beautiful, will be going to seed in a couple more weeks, and we will have to wait a month or more before asters and goldenrods mount a more modest attempt to paint our roadsides and fields.

Fortunately, if you really want to see something beautiful and colorful after ice-out and mud season, you don’t have to wait for the lupine. You just have to keep your eyes open as you walk through a field or along the edge of a pond. For me, the pussy willows that suddenly appear at the tips of the little willow trees at the edge of the Upper Meadow are among the first signs of spring. People often cut a few branches of pussy willows to put in a vase in the kitchen or on the porch. However, if you keep watching, in a few more days these soft, furry buds will blossom into a remarkable flower.

April 21, 2023. When a pussy willow opens up, it provides a magnificent display – but you have to look closely to see it!

April 28, 2025. Trout lily, often the first wildflower that I see by the pond, blooms soon after the pussy willows. This is one of three trout lilies blooming along the little brook that leads to the pond. Many more will bloom over the next few days.

A Walk Along the Dam

In mid-April, the dam, like many of us, is depressed by the ever-lasting snow and ice. By mid-June, the dam, like many of us, is overwhelmed by the sheer variety and brilliance of the lupine. In between, in mid-May, when I walk along the dam, even though the new growth has barely begun, I know to look for the wild strawberries and violets that are usually the first flowers to break through last year’s detritus.

May 13, 2025. Wild strawberries are the first blooms to be seen along the dam.

May 22, 2025. A cluster of violets adds a bit of color to the dam.

I look carefully for the tiny, easily missed flowers such as the blue-eyed grass, which has single flowers barely half an inch across on stalks less than a foot tall, and I don’t ignore the beauty of the plentiful, but much maligned dandelion.

June 10, 2020. A few of the tiny flowers atop the stems of blue-eyed grass can be seen in the latter half of May. By June, there may be dozens along the dam.

May 13, 2025. If you think of dandelions as weeds, you probably haven’t noticed the delightful shades of yellow and orange of their blossoms.

I also am happy when I see the first blooms of golden alexander, a taller plant with nice clumps of florets that sprouts all along the dam and into the meadows.

June 10, 2020. Golden Alexander starts to bloom in late May, when a couple dozen of these golden clumps make portions of the dam look almost like the timid beginnings of the lush garden that they will become when the lupine is in full bloom

Apple Blossom Time

May is often known as apple blossom time, which may be an appropriate description in a rural area where clones of an ancestral tree with tasty apples grow in orderly rows in tidy orchards at the edge of town. The orchards that were once common in the North Country have mostly disappeared. Instead of the neat rows of similarly shaped trees, all with the same blossoms blooming simultaneously, we now enjoy an incredible variety of undisciplined volunteers that pop up in any field that is left unmown and open to bears. The bears eat the apples and spread their seeds, and each new tree is unique, creating infinite variations in the size and color of blossoms and fruits and a disorderly timetable for blooming and ripening. As a result, the volunteer apple trees that have grown up in old fields like our Upper Meadow provide colors ranging from pure white to deep red. A few of these trees also have edible fruit, and just yesterday, I celebrated the fresh blossoms by finishing off the last of the dried apples I had prepared last fall.

May 29,2025. Apple blossoms in the Upper Meadow range from nearly pure white to a lovely, deep red.

The same animals that spread the apple seeds also spread the seeds of hawthorns, viburnums, and the other flowering shrubs and trees that thrive in overgrown fields. A close look at these flowers reveals an unexpected intricacy of detail and color.

May 29, 2025. When I walked out to the Upper Meadow to take a photo of the apple blossoms, I also noticed the more intricate blossoms of a hawthorn tree and what I think is a viburnum.

Thank the Butterflies for the Colors

Wildflowers don’t have colors developed by generations of gardeners to create ever more spectacular blooms for country gardens and wedding receptions. No, wildflowers have developed their colors over millennia to attract the insects that will pollinate them. As more flowers come into bloom, we begin to see more bees, more butterflies, more hummingbirds, and more of the many other species that these blooms attract.

May 30, 2018. Swallowtails love the myriad flowers found in lilac bushes throughout the North Country. 

June 8, 2020. A Cloudy Sulphur visits a daisy fleabane at the edge of the pond

And Soon the Lupine Will Bloom

Today, at the end of May, when I walked along the dam, I could see hundreds of lupine plants, none more than a foot tall, and only two that had even the beginning of any flowers. But soon, perhaps by the time you read this, the lupine will be there for all to see. What new colors and new combinations will we see this year?

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.

Phenological Phacts and Photos with Carl Martland / May 2025

Nesting Season 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).”

The Season is the Reason

It’s spring, finally, in the North Country. The birds have returned, and they are pairing off and building nests. If you stop by Coffin Pond, you may see a gander that meanders in search of a goose. Do you like that phrase? Do you recognize it? Of course, it’s from Glen Miller’s classic “Elmer’s Tune”, which reached no.1 on Billboard in 1941:

Why are the stars always winkin' and blinkin' above?
What makes a fellow start thinkin' of fallin' in love?
It's not the season, the reason is plain as the moon.
It's just Elmer's tune.
What makes a lady of eighty go out on the loose?
Why does a gander meander in search of a goose?
What puts the kick in a chicken, the magic in June?
It's just Elmer's tune.

This wonderful song has a tune composed by (and eventually named for) Elmer Albrecht, an arrangement for Big Band by Dick Jurgens, and lyrics by Sammy Gallop (Elmer's Tune - Wikipedia). While Elmer’s tune might well be the reason that love blossoms for “the charmer, the farmer, the cop on the beat,” it certainly doesn’t cause the gander to meander! Despite what he put into the song, I’m sure that Sammy Gallop well understood that the season really is the reason that the goose meanders in search of a goose.

Early Birds at Coffin Pond

Mergansers and Canada Geese can be seen in Coffin Pond in late March, even with fresh snow on the ground, so long as there is some open water. Common mergansers, which are shown in the opening photo, seek lakes and other large bodies of water, because they like to gather in small flocks. Hooded mergansers join them if they can’t find a small pond with ice out,

March 25, 2020, 40 degrees, beautiful. We walked out the snow-covered trail next to Coffin Pond, which was still two thirds iced over. A half dozen hooded mergansers and a single common merganser were in the pond, while a pair of Canada Geese floated across the river, eventually climbing out and huddling on the opposite shore, their necks buried in their feathers.

April 14, 2022. A dozen common mergansers at Coffin Pond.

March 25, 2020. A single common merganser was in Coffin Pond.

Early Birds at Our Pond

Our pond is only little more than a hundred yards long and 30 yards wide, but it has plenty of cattails at each end, woods and meadows along the sides, and a point ending in what we call Rock Island. Ducks and geese often drop by in early spring, and sometimes a pair decides to nest here.

Common Mergansers

Common mergansers visited our pond most years back when the meadows were less overgrown, but we haven’t seen many in the last ten years.

April 18-22, 2003. Cloudy, about 50 degrees, with almost all of the snow gone. There was a lot of activity at the pond: two pairs of beautiful common mergansers, a pair and another male hooded merganser, a pair of mallards and an extra male, plus a magnificent great blue heron.

April 19, 2009. Two pairs of common mergansers are in the pond along with a pair of mallards. Two Canada geese flew over.

March 18, 2009. A pair of common mergansers swimming toward Rock Island.

Common mergansers, like loons, can stay underwater for several minutes, so you have to be both patient and quick if you want to get a photo when one finally pops up:

August 4, 2011. A diving duck was in our pond, submerging for as long as three minutes. I eventually got a close enough to identify it as a common merganser.

Hooded Mergansers

As the fields around the pond became more overgrown, hooded mergansers, which prefer to pair off in small, sheltered ponds, found our pond increasingly attractive. They sometimes arrive while some ice is still on the pond.

April 1-5, 2020. Ice half out on our pond on the 1st. By the 3rd, ice was gone except for the coves – and a pair of hooded mergansers had settled in.

Hooded mergansers first nested in the pond back in 2006. That was a special event, so I provided a detailed description of the way the mother handled her ducklings:

June 1, 2006. Peepers and tree frogs were active when I went out to look at the sunset, hoping to see the ducklings that were on the pond on May 28th. At 7:30 pm, I saw one at the far end of the pond near the reeds. I walked out along the dam, and two common mergansers flew in for a quick visit; they saw me and immediately took off. I then heard what sounded like a weird frog – halfway from a wood frogs quaking to a bull frog’s rumbling – and soon I saw a mother hooded merganser and two ducklings swimming from the far end toward the point. She was calling for the others to join her, and three more swam out of the low alder branches just west of the point. 
A few days later, on June 6th, when I headed out to the pond at 12:27, ever-vigilant Mrs. Merganser began quacking from her sentry post at the center of the pond.  At 12:32, she swam toward the shore, where she was met by four or five ducklings, and they disappeared into the reeds.

It was nine years later before another pair nested by our pond, but we have had nesting pairs in eight years since 2015. The father leaves the pond after the ducklings are able to leave their nest, but the mother stays with them for another month or two.

June 15, 2023. A merganser and her ducklings shared Rock Island with a couple of turtles.

June 26, 2019. A merganser swims along with her ducklings in our pond.

The ducklings suffer predation, but each year two or three survive and grow strong enough to survive on their own. They typically leave the pond in mid- to late-August, but may return for a few days in September or even in November.

September 6, 2019, 64 degrees, mostly cloudy. The hooded mergansers have returned after an absence (unexcused) of several days.

November 4-7, 2022, 70-72 degrees (!) At least three hooded mergansers, including one pair, were on the dam on both the fourth and the fifth, and there was one in the pond today that flew to other end and hid in the reeds when I approached.

Mallards

Mallards, the most wide-spread duck in the world, naturally have visited our pond from time to time, but they have only nested once, which was during our first spring here in Sugar Hill. They also nested once at Jayne’s Pond, a little nearby pond that is now nearly completely overgrown.

June 8-9, 1998. Nancy saw two mallards, their five ducklings, and one other duck at our end of the pond at 530pm.

May 27, 2000. There were 11 mallard ducklings by Jayne’s Pond.

I have only twice seen mallards in our pond after mid-June. A pair dropped in for a photo-op on August 10, 2018, and a juvenile rested here on October 9th that same year.

October 9, 2018, partly cloudy, 75 degrees, noon. A juvenile mallard cruised slowly into view, heading toward the reeds in the SE corner. It stepped out on Quahog Rock, but just for a minute, and soon slipped in among the reeds near the big birches.  Twenty minutes later, when I stood up, it flew down to the other end of the pond. When I came out again at 5pm, it was back on Quahog Rock.

Wood Ducks

Any sighting of a wood duck is worth remembering, but our first Sugar Hill sighting was truly remarkable:

June 19, 2001 88 degrees, humid, somewhat hazy. We happened to see mama wood duck leading 5 ducklings up the front lawn. We watched then walk around the Pearl Lake side of the house, across the backyard, and up the trail by the pond. She marched them along at a steady rate, apparently knowing right where she was leading them [we never saw them again].

While this was the only time that we have ever seen a mother duck leading her ducklings on a long trek from their pond to a new home, that one sighting is enough to confirm that the story from “Make Way for Ducklings” is in fact true to life!

We have seen wood ducks at our pond every couple of years, and we know that they have nested here at least twice. In early May 2018, I chanced to get a photo of a male wood duck walking away from Rock Island, where it had been enjoying the sunshine.

May 2, 2018. Five turtles – four large and one medium - on Rock Island. While I was taking their picture, I noticed a wood duck walking toward them on the Point. Naturally, it walked away and then flew off, but not before I got three good pictures. 

Three weeks later, ducklings enjoyed the view from the same spot.

May 28, 2018. A young wood duck stands on Rock Island, perhaps taking its first look across the pond.

Large families of wood ducks were also swimming around the pond in 2008 and 2011.

June 15, 2008, 80 degrees. A wood duck was leading her ten ducklings toward the point (photo). When I came near, the ducks quacked, came right out in front of me, and swam directly to safety under the branches of the big pine. These are presumably the offspring of the ducks that I saw in the pond on April 30th.

Canada Geese

I was probably in the third grade when someone gave me a little, paperback book with pictures and stories of birds commonly seen in New England. I recall loving the gold finches that I saw near the coast and the robins whose nests I found when climbing in the big oak trees, but it was a sticker of a Canada Goose that I stuck to the cover of my treasured bird book. Several decades ago, still enamored of these beauties, I purchased a pair of Canada Goose andirons for our fireplace. You’ll have to forgive me for being so fond of these geese, because back then, they had yet to become the scourge of golf courses and corporate landscapes. For a ten-year old, it was a great day when we had a chance to see once of these huge, handsome, friendly birds.

As long as these geese keep to small flocks, they are still birds to admire. They come early to Coffin Pond, and a few stay there to raise families.

June 26, 2018. Canada Geese at Coffin Pond.

Our pond always attracts a couple of geese each year, much to the dismay of the resident redwing-blackbirds. However, until this year, their visits have been temporary, so we had to go down to Coffin Pond to see the goslings. For some reason, this year is special. We returned from a vacation to find a pair of geese making themselves at home by the pond. The male has been poking around the edges of the pond, seeking a bite to eat now and then, but the female has been sitting in the same spot at the end of the point for the last six days. Strange behavior? Yes, indeed! She is sitting on her eggs in a simple nest on the ground at the base of several small birch trees. Sitting … sitting … and sitting. For as long as it takes. Without food or drink. For three weeks or longer until the goslings are ready to walk the few feet to the pond to enjoy their first swim. So, we’re keeping an eye on her, hoping to see what happens when the goslings pop out from under her wings.

April 21, 2025. Canada Goose on her nest at the Point.

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.

Phenological Phacts and Photos with Carl Martland / April 2025

Jabberwocky Explained

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).”

‘Twas Brillig

The ice is out - almost. The snow is gone - almost. The sun is out – completely. The sky is blue, and the air is clear.  The birds are singing, and a light breeze is blowing. What a wonderful day! 

April 24-30, 2018, 62 degrees and sunny at 10am! The ice was a third out at 8am on the 24th, but it was rapidly dissolving, turning from pure white to grey to translucent to nothing. We took advantage of this unusually warm and beautiful day to have breakfast on the patio. While sitting there, we heard the first faint calls of wood frogs from the other side of Pearl Lake Road.

Spring is here! Or, as Lewis Carroll put it, “’Twas Brillig!”

Jabberwocky

“’Twas brillig” is the start to Jabberwocky, a poem that Lewis Carroll published in 1872 and one that has enchanted generations of kids of all ages ever since. Carroll invented dozens of words for use in this poem, some of which have come into accepted usage, including chortled and galumphed, but most of them seem to most people to be as fantastical as the Jabberwock is supposed to be. However, I believe that this poem, at least the beginning, is an accurate description of what anyone might see around a pond in the beginning of spring, not only in Old England a hundred and fifty years ago, but right now in April in New England. Here are the first two stanzas:

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe. 

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

I’ll explain what this means in the remainder of this essay. For the complete poem see:

Jabberwocky | The Poetry Foundation

The Wabe

Before the ice has completely disappeared, a few wood frogs have awakened from their frozen slumber and headed toward the pond. Their “first faint calls” are just the beginning of a party that will last several days. Soon, hundreds of males will have gathered at the pond waiting for the females, who come a day or two later. Some of them wait at the shoreline, while others spread out ten or twenty feet from the shore, as if they were sentries guarding against an invasion.

April 20, 2003. I went out to the pond this morning at about 10:30, because the wood frogs had started their croaking. As long as I sat motionless, they ignored me, but any quick movement would cause them to duck under. On the other hand, a “Martland Sneeze” had no effect! From where I sat, I could see 55 frogs without even moving my head. While I sat there, four hopped in on my right and two on my left; I could hear the rustling in the dead grass, then watch them take two or three wild leaps into the pond. One frog was so anxious that he landed on his back, rolled over and hit the water. Two others came in simultaneously and each immediately tried to hop on the other – no dice – so they swam out into the cacophony.

As more and more females arrive, the frogs get ever more excited, creating a crescendo of croaking that sounds like a dozen drunken ducks and lasts into the wee hours. The females are larger than the males, which enables her to keep her head above water even if two or more males are on her back hoping for a chance to fertilize her eggs.

April 20, 2008. At 2pm, Nancy and I took the canoe out to watch the party animals. There were 160 wood frogs in west bay, 200 by the point, and 160 in east bay. Nearly all of the frogs were males, as we only saw about a dozen “clumps of sex-crazed frogs”, all of them at or east of the point. I call them “clumps”, because as many as eight males clung or tried to cling to a single female, forming a single writhing mass of frogs that churned the water.

Eventually, hundreds of females turn up, and everyone finds a partner. When the party is over, the frogs all go back to the woods, but they have left hundreds of gooey clumps, each clump composed of a hundred or more individual eggs. In a couple of openings between the shore and the cattails, dozens pf these clumps will be mashed together in a glutinous mass several feet across and a foot deep. To me, that mass is what Lewis Carroll named the “wabe”.

April 17, 2024. The party is over, and the wood frogs have gone back to the woods, but they have left dozens of egg masses.

The Slithy Toves

It wasn’t until our first spring in Sugar Hill that I ever heard a chorus of wood frogs or saw any of their egg masses. In 2001, when I heard the chorus, I went out for a closer look and noticed something slipping through the eggs. “What’s that? A newt? No, a dozen newts! What on earth are they doing?” Then I wrote the following note in my journal:

May 6, 2001: I watched a dozen newts gamble in and around the 150 wood frog egg masses I’d noticed a couple of days earlier. … The newts seemed to be looking for mates, but perhaps they just enjoyed rubbing up against the slimy eggs. In any case, they would search through the egg masses, tangle with each other for a few seconds, hold still for about a minute, and then one would slide under the belly of the other and go back along the egg masses.

May 6, 2019. Tadpoles are emerging from the disintegrating clumps of wood frog eggs, but they aren’t straying more than a few inches away. One intact clump is at the lower left of this photo. A curious newt is visible in the upper right.

It was a couple of years later that it occurred to me that the newts might have been cleaning themselves after a long winter spent buried somewhere in the mud. Whatever the newts were up to, my observations documented the fact that a bunch of slimy newts slithered and squirmed over and under dozens of clumps of wood frog eggs. However, I believe that Lewis Carroll portrayed this same activity with poetic simplicity and eloquent mystery:

 “the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.”  

All Mimsy Were the Borogoves

Painted turtles emerge from their winter retreats about the same time that wood frogs gather by the pond. At first, they are sluggish, presumably stiff, aching, and hungry as a result of their months of inactivity. If you look closely at the turtle in the photo below, you can see it still has mud around its eyes.

April 21, 2019, 1130am, 66 degrees: A painted turtle sat on a mossy root about five feet from the SW corner of the pond. It was so sluggish that I not only took many pictures, I was able to pick it up and measure it. Its shell was an inch shorter than my notebook, i.e. 4.5 inches

The largest turtles emerge first, and all they want is a bath, something to eat, and a place to rest in the sun. A week or two after ice out, a half dozen or more turtles will be seen basking in the sun on Rock Island, the bit of bedrock sticking out at the end of the Point.

May 5, 2019. Two weeks after the first painted turtle showed up, I found eight of them basking in the sun on Rock Island.

I believe these turtles, or their British counterparts, are in fact Carroll’s “mimsy borogoves. Mimsy seems to be a perfect word to describe that feeling when all you want to do is to bask in the sun, and borogove sounds suspiciously like “burrow groves” – and turtles do indeed burrow in groves of trees somewhere close to the Pond.

The Mome Raths Outgrabe

“Mome raths” must be creatures that show up around the same time as the slithy toves and the borogoves. Hooded mergansers, like the wood frogs, show up as soon as the ice is out or almost out. A couple of males and females will be together in the pond for a couple of weeks, flirting with each other, listening to the frogs, and watching the turtles. So what does “outgrabe” mean? This word seems suspiciously close to “out grab,” which is a concise description of what these ducks do just after the long migratory journey that brought them to the Pond.

April 19, 2029. The ice was still covering most of the Pond when this pair of hooded mergansers arrived.  After breaking a somewhat larger opening in the ice, they twisted their necks, poked their bills into their feathers, and cleaned themselves up.

Beware the Jabberwock

Some might say that the Jabberwock is a mythical creature, but why would Carroll describe newts, turtles and mergansers in the first stanza and then descend into fantasy in the second? No, the Jabberwock must be a real creature, and it must be found near the same ponds where the other creatures are found. We also know that this poem tells us what a man said to his son who has taken his vorpal blade and is about to set off to find the Jabberwock. Now, a son could be a grown man, but it seems to me that this son is a boy with a vivid imagination who is heading off on an adventure with the approval of his father. Thus, the jabberwock could not be a bear; even though a bear certainly has jaws that bite and claws that snatch. No father would send his sun out to hunt a bear with a little blade, no matter how vorpal.

My belief is that the Jabberwock is a snapping turtle, which also has jaws and claws with the required abilities. Although a dangerous beast, a snapping turtle will stick its neck out a little too far for its own good, as shown in this photo of one that crossed my path below the dam. 

June 18, 2017, 90 degrees, sunny. I went out to the solar array, planning to sit for a while in the shade simply enjoying the lupine. Imagine my surprise when a large snapping turtle stepped out onto the flat rock that is just about where I was planning to place my chair. Its shell was about 1 to 1 ½ feet long, its neck was thick, and its attitude toward me was somewhere between indifference and mild scorn. … It slowly advanced along the edge of the clearing and eventually found a suitable place to climb up the dam. For obvious reasons, I made no attempt to follow it!

As is evident in this photo, the long neck of a snapping turtle does provide an obvious target for someone armed with a vorpal blade. Furthermore, I know for a fact that boys have been known to hunt snapping turtles near ponds in New England, so presumably they have done so in Old England. My father grew up in Warwick, Rhode Island, and he told me that he used to capture snapping turtles in potato sacks and then sell them for fifty cents apiece to a neighbor who made turtle soup and marketed patent medicines with allegedly astounding – but unproven - benefits. My father had to use skill and great care to catch the turtles in a sack, because neither he, his brother, nor his father had a vorpal blade.

Beware the Jubjub Bird

You might think that the Jubjub bird would be an eagle, a ferocious hawk or maybe an owl. Not so. A fish or a squirrel should beware such birds of prey, but those birds are not a threat to a boy walking by the pond or into the woods.  The boy is told to “beware” the Jubjub bird, which clearly indicates that this bird is likely to be seen nearby, that it might well attack a person, and that care must be taken not to get too close to it. I have two reasons to believe that the Jubjub bird is a swan. First, this is a large and beautiful bird that is commonly seen along the shores of ponds in England. Second, another family tale has shown us that swans can be very fearsome. Nancy and I came upon a family of swans at the edge of a lagoon on Point Judith in Rhode Island. When Nancy was about to sit down on a rock to enjoy the view, the nearest swan stretched to its full height, squawked loudly, and came toward her. Frightened nearly out of her wits, Nancy escaped unharmed, but now we both know to beware swans.

April 17, 2016. Swans were nesting along the marshes behind the sand dunes at the wildlife sanctuary near the famous Cape May lighthouse. Best to use a high-power zoom to get this photo, as we have learned that it is dangerous to approach swans, especially in mating season.

Shun the Frumious Bandersnatch

This sounds like another warning about some sort of ferocious beast. But once again, I don’t believe that the father would let his son go anywhere where he would be apt to see – and therefore be able to shun – such an animal. I prefer to think of this as a phrase respecting the well-known anger of a common resident of any pond, namely the red-winged blackbird. At our pond, we typically have a half-dozen or more nesting pairs, and they do not like anyone – man, woman, child, or Canada Goose – to walk or swim too close to their nests. You quickly learn to move a little further away after being dive-bombed by an angry redwing.

May 9, 2015. A red-winged blackbird chastised me when I walked too close to its nest.

‘Twill Oft be Brillig

To enjoy a brillig day, just keep your eyes open, for such days can come at any time of the spring or summer. I’ll close with an original painting by a budding Sugar Hill artist, Arlo Burtnick. I happened to sit behind him at Town Meeting, where he was working on a drawing of birds while the adults droned on. I introduced myself to the family, described my blog, and suggested that I could use some of his drawings. Arlo’s painting of a swan swimming along by some flowers shows what you might see on a brillig summer day!

The Swan, by Arlo Burtnick

Phenological Phacts and Photos with Carl Martland / March 2025

“Is that a …?”

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 Weekend for the Birds

The NH Audubon Society has long organized what they refer to as the BWBW (the Backyard Winter Bird Watch to the uninitiated.) Each year, more than a thousand bird-watchers (a.k.a. “twitchers” for those of you coming from the UK) keep track of all the birds that they see in their backyard or in another of their favorite spots for watching birds. Everyone reports their sightings to NH Audubon so as to be consolidated into a comprehensive list of the birds seen in New Hampshire. Data accumulated over the decades of doing seasonal bird surveys provides insights into which species are becoming more or less abundant up here over the various seasons of the year.

While I probably have known about such surveys for well over a half century, this year was the first time I have participated in one. I have many times decided not to spend a half day at Pondicherry for one of the summer or fall bird surveys, but the BWBW offers a different kind of opportunity. With the BWBW, there is no need for travel, no commitment to an extended period of time, and no fear of rain, snow, or freezing cold winds. How could I resist the BWBW? I could sit by the kitchen window, sip coffee, and enjoy my elevenses while looking out at the bird feeder, binoculars and camera at hand.  And all the hours I would spend looking out the window rather than working on our taxes or paying the bills could be recorded as “scientific inquiry” rather than as “bone-idle wastefulness.”

So, this month’s photo essay will document what I observed in my “weekend for the birds.” I’ll begin with the regulars and work up to a couple of real surprises.

The Regulars

Our bird feeder hangs from a pole in the middle of an open space about 15-25 yards wide between a large spruce tree, a large willow, a couple of maples, and the side of our house. Birds regularly fly into one of the trees, take a moment or two to see who else is hanging around, and then go in for a snack. Some go straight to the feeder, some go to the seeds scattered under the feeder, and a few go for the suet. Blue jays and chickadees have been coming every day for the past month or more, just like they have every year for more than 25 years. Blue jays often come in small flocks, and they spend most of their time spread out under the feeder picking sunflower seeds from the snow. The flock may be here for ten or twenty minutes at a time, with one or two on the feeder, four or five under the feeder, and another three or four in the spruce tree. None of them stays still for long, so there is constantly motion as they poke about in the snow and fly back and forth between the trees and the feeder.

February 9, 2025. As many as ten blue jays were at the feeder today. This was one of the few that paused from foraging to pose for a photo.

The chickadees may come at the same time as the blue jays, because they aren’t interested at all in what’s on the ground. Instead, they’ll pick at the suet for a minute or so or they’ll just come in, grab a seed from the feeder, and quickly fly back to one of the trees. Many years, we’ve had flocks of a half dozen or so, but I never say more than three of them at one time during the BWBW.

Gold finches aren’t here every day, but they drop by a couple of times a week. They get along well with the chickadees, and they sometimes stand side-by-side picking seeds from the feeder.

February 8, 2025. A flock of 15 gold finches foraged under the feeder; but from time to time, a couple of them elected to pick seeds right off the tray, perhaps sharing the space with a chickadee.  

Nuthatches and tufted titmice are other regular visitors that were here for the bird watch. The titmice are larger than the chickadees and goldfinches, which may be why they are willing to stay a little longer at the feeder. The red-breasted and the white-breasted nuthatches are both small birds that only dare to stay at the feeder for a few seconds. They usually just grab a seed and immediately head back to the willow.

Both nuthatches were here for the BWBW, but neither posed for the photo shoot. This photo taken on December 4th likely shows one of the white-breasted nuthatches that was here briefly during the bird watch.

February 8, 2025. A pair of tufted titmice were here on both the 8th and the 9th. Chickadees, nuthatches, and titmice share the same lovely shades of grey, black, white and yellow-orange.

The most unexpected regulars this year have been a friendly pair of cardinals. Although Sibley’s 2003 Field Guide tells me that cardinals have been year-round in northern New Hampshire for at least 22 years, they avoided our corner of the North Country until just the last few years, and this is the first year that a pair has been a daily visitor to the feeder. Both the male and the female love to forage under the feeder and under the spruce, periodically flying up to a perch in the tree to observe what’s going on.

February 8 & 9, 2025. A pair of cardinals showed off their striking colors under the bird feeder. They have been in the neighborhood all winter, their colors appearing quite exotic against the snowy background.

Woodpeckers

Downy and hairy woodpeckers were both seen taking a quick bite out of the suet and then repairing to the willow tree. Since the downy looks pretty much like a small-sized hairy, it is very difficult to figure which one you’re looking at unless they are next to something that serves as a ruler, such as the little cage holding the suet. Even then, it is hard to see how long the bird is, since it is usually wrapped awkwardly around the wire cage as it looks for its next bite. I prefer a photo of a bird in a tree to the much more easily obtained photo of one at the feeder. This one, unfortunately, is the best I could manage during the BWBW.

February 9, 2025. This woodpecker was seeking insects in the thick bark of the big willow. Unfortunately, the photo seems to show a couple of clumps of snow rather than a bird. Until it went to the suet, I had no idea whether it was a downy or a hairy woodpecker.  

Holy Mackerel!

A couple of days before the BWBW, while I was practicing my observation technique (no, I wasn’t just sipping coffee and frittering away my time!), I noticed a half dozen or more darkish birds sitting in the top of a maple next to Pearl Lake Road. I picked up the binoculars, figuring that they were probably blue jays whose colors were muted because it was so cloudy. Imagine my surprise to see that they were robins, the famous harbingers of spring who really had their phenological intuition messed up.

February 9, 2025. Nearly a dozen robins were in out backyard on the 3rd. One of them was still here on the 9th, so I was able to include robins in my official list.  In the years I’ve been keeping records, I had never before seen a robin here between the middle of October and the second week of March

The robins were a surprise, but that wasn’t even close to the biggest surprise of the bird-watching weekend. On Sunday afternoon, I come into the kitchen to spend some more time looking for birds, and I noticed a stranger sitting atop the pole holding the bird feeder. I wasn’t sure what it was, because it was turned away from me, but it certainly wasn’t one of the regulars. I took the picture that’s now at the top of this essay, zoomed in, and realized I was looking at a juvenile blue bird!

A few of these beauties sometimes linger in the North Country until late October or even early November, but I never seen one here before the end of March. What was this youngster doing way up here in early February? Was it alone? No, because a minute or two later, four adult males landed on the feeder. They stayed only a few minutes and haven’t been seen since, but I was thrilled to add them to the BWBW.

February 9, 2025. A half dozen bluebirds came to the feeder for a few minutes, the first ones I have ever seen in mid-winter anywhere in New England!

Too Early or Too Late

The first mourning doves of the winter showed up five days too early for the official count, and two crows elected to visit the feeder a day too late. No great loss, as both of these birds will have been seen by many other participants in the bird watch. 

More interesting is the barred owl I saw at the end of January. While we hear them calling after dusk during much of the year, we seldom see them, and I have never before photographed one in the wild.

January 24, 2025. I first noticed this barred owl in an apple tree at the edge of the Upper Meadow. I followed it into the woods, where it settled in on a branch of one of the tall pines.

Another loss to the bird count were the evening grosbeaks that were here ten days too early and then came back four days too late. Everybody loves to see grosbeaks, so I’m adding them to this essay, even though I had to keep them off my official list.

February 13, 2025. A flock of a half-dozen evening grosbeaks flitted about in the tops of the birch trees at the edge of the Lower Meadow.

A Magic Moment

I have already indicated how surprising it has been to see either cardinals or blue birds here in Sugar Hill in the middle of winter. So, you’ll understand why I close with a single photo that captured a magic moment right outside my kitchen window. While I was enjoying watching the falling snow adding to the foot-and-a-half that already covered the ground, a cardinal coming in for a landing caught the attention of the bluebirds sitting on the feeder. 

February 9, 2025, 2:33 in the afternoon. A pair of cardinals and a half dozen bluebirds – the peak moment of my 2025 BWBW!

Phenological Phacts and Photos with Carl Martland / February 2025

A Bird for Each Month: July to December

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).”

Wilde Seasons

Last month, I introduced this two-part essay “A Bird for Each Month” by noting that we have accepted the Roman names for our months, but choose to end the year in what the Romans recognized as Month 10! The Romans began the new year not in the dead of winter, but in March, which welcomes the reawakening of spring and the return of the migrating birds. I then picked one bird for each month to illustrate some of the phenological happenings between January and June.

A day after finishing Part I, I happened to pick up a book of poems by Oscar Wilde. Imagine my surprise when, toward the end of an eight-stanza poem, I came across lines that were perfect for the introduction to this essay:

Now is the Spring of Love, yet soon will come
On meadow and tree the Summer’s lordly bloom;
And soon the grass with brighter flowers will blow,
And send up lilies for some boy to mow.
Then before long the Summer’s conqueror,
Rich Autumn-time, the season’s usurer,
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,
And see it scattered by the spendthrift breeze;
And after that the Winter Cold and Drear.
So runs the perfect cycle of the year.

Wilde’s poem, which was entitled “Ravenna,” was inspired by a visit to this city, the ancient capital of the empire after Rome was sacked. He, like the ancient Romans, understood that the natural year logically begins in spring and ends in the cold darkness of winter. If you visit Dublin, you can spend some time bird-watching in Merrion Square Park, right across from where he once lived and where he, or rather his statue, continues to keep an eye out for the birds.

July

Every spring, when we lived in Boston, my friend Tony would urge us to come with him to Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge to see the migrating warblers. Tony, a serious birdwatcher, always knew when these fascinating, colorful, restless little birds were passing through. We always accompanied him, because the cemetery was also a showcase for flowering shrubs and early spring flowers. While we were enjoying the sunny spring afternoon, we would from time to time hear Tony shriek something like “OMG – there’s a chestnut-sided warbler!” We, of course, couldn’t recognize any warbler fifty yards away near the top of a tree, but we appreciated listening to them singing for the sheer joy of it. And that would be the end of the warblers for us, for they, like us, preferred to spend their vacations further north.

Warblers typically arrive in Sugar Hill, in mid-May, which is probably a week or so after they left Boston, and many of them will stay all summer. Some, like the black-throated green and the black-and-white warblers look for nests deep in the woods. Others, including the chestnut-sided warbler, prefer the edges of the meadows. Getting a close-up view of this sociable bird is not a problem:

   July 23, 1999, 90 degrees, humid, partly cloudy. I saw a chestnut-sided warbler in an alder      near the Upper Meadow. Actually, it saw me first and flew to a branch about 5 feet away for     a closer look.  

   May 26, 2016. A chestnut-sided warbler poked about the brush five feet away from me as
   we gathered around the base of the new solar array. This was the least flighty warbler ever.

If you see a warbler flitting about low alders or willows at the edge of a meadow in July, it may well be a chestnut-sided. If so, be patient, for once it notices you, it may well land a short distance away, and the male will be happy to show off its chestnut-colored flanks.

July 28, 2017 A chestnut-sided warbler paused long enough for me to catch his brilliant colors in this photo.

August

Great blue herons are magnificent birds. Seeing one flying across the road is worthy of comment. Seeing one guarding its nest high in a tree by a swamp is a treat. Seeing one hunting for frogs is memorable.

   August 8, 2019, 84 degrees, partly cloudy, not humid at 330 because of earlier heavy rain. A     great blue heron just flew off from next to our dock. I not only hadn’t seen it, it hadn’t even      occurred to me to look. No coincidence that I saw the first small leopard and pickerel frogs          yesterday, or that I saw five of them today.

   August 11, 1999. A great blue heron was at the end of the pond, on a rock, croaking (like a       frog?). He did this for 5 minutes, then jumped into the water and picked out something            small. I walked out on the dam to get a closer look, and made it directly across from the
  heron. I didn’t notice the bittern, who flew out of the reeds, surprising both me and the heron,    who took flight as well.

August 20-21, 2000.  The blue heron was hunting at the pond on the 20th and the 21st;
we think it is going for the young green frogs, which sit with their heads just out of the water
hoping an insect will land within their “kill” range of about 3-4 inches. Near the Point,
young green frogs can be seen sitting still every foot or so along the shore. More small frogs are
on the other side of the pond, where they tend to stay on the bank, a foot or two up in the
weeds.

   August 20, 2017, 74 degrees, PC, breezy, wonderful! A great blue heron flew up as I walked
   by the northeast corner of the pond – I may have saved a frog or two.

August 7, 2020. A great blue heron landed on Kennerson’s dock, sat there for a while, then moved to various spots along the shore. Eventually it began to hunt for the small frogs that are emerging from the pond.

September: Fall Migration

Flickers are reliable migrants, both in the spring and the fall. We frequently see a half dozen or more spread out across the lawn busily looking for insects and digging for ants. We also see them on lawns as we drive through town.

September 16, 2020. A lone flicker poked about the front and back lawns.  

September 30, 2018, 58 degrees, partly cloudy.  Flickers in the yard and flocks of small
migratory birds on Pearl Lake Road; three jakes and five other turkeys along I93.

October

By early October, the wild flowers have gone to seed, reminding us that summer is long gone and that it is time to get ready for winter. While the flowers no longer light up our days, their seeds provide a nice meal for the migrating birds. White-throated sparrows are one of my favorites, and they seem to really like the seeds of the white flat-topped asters that stand four or five feet tall along the dam and in the Upper Meadow.

   October 8, 2013. White throated sparrows were eating the seeds of white flat-topped asters.

I didn’t identify either the sparrow or the wildflower captured in the photo below. However, after finding the above entry from the same time of year in 2013, I am sure that my caption for the photo is accurate.

October 4, 2021. A white-throated sparrow picks seeds off the faded white-topped asters.

November

In late fall, if the ground isn’t covered by snow, a few migrating birds will be lingering in the North Country. The woodcock, famed for its mating ritual in early spring, can be seen now and then throughout the summer and the fall. For some reason, they don’t seem to mind me much as they go about their business.

September 28, 2007 70 degrees, cloudy. At dusk, a woodcock flew two feet from my head as I
stood still on the path just inside the entrance through the hedge to the Back 4. It flew about
20 feet, landed in a little cleared area and eyed me for about 2 minutes. I didn’t move, so he
proceeded to waddle about, poking the ground a couple of times.  

  October 26, 2022, 62 degrees at dusk, 6pm. Three woodcock flew up from the Lower Meadow
  and then right over my head as I was watching a bat circling over the Pond.

  November 3, 2014. A woodcock flew up as I walked out to my wood shed; another flew up
  when I walked by the pond.

Woodcock may not be the first or the last of the migrants, but no other migrants are here for so much of the year. Red-winged blackbirds may arrive a week or two earlier in March, but they are gone by the end of summer, while woodcock can be seen until the beginning of November. Thus, these interesting birds are here for eight months of the year.

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

December

By mid-December, the last of the summer residents have headed south, and the first of the winter residents have shown up. Sometimes the last departure and the first arrival happen on the same day:

   December 16, 2020, 10 degrees, partly cloudy. 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. Probably
   my latest view of one in Sugar Hill, documented only by this note and a poor photo. I did
   manage better photos of the Evening Grosbeak that foraged for sunflower seeds under the
   feeder.

Evening Grosbeaks don’t show up every year, but when they do show up, they are always welcome. They often travel in small flocks, and they are most commonly seen in late winter.

December 12, 2020. A pair of grosbeaks arrived, the earliest I have seen them in Sugar Hill. They usually wait until well into the New Year.

Why have I picked evening grosbeaks as the Bird of the Month for December if they normally don’t show up until a month or two later? Because, when they do arrive at this time of year, that really is a Christmas present!

Phenological Phacts and Photos with Carl Martland / January 2025

A Bird for Each Month: January to June

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).”

Primary Phenological Phact

Ancient peoples long ago figured out, sometimes to an astonishing degree of accuracy, that a year is just over 365 days long. That could be considered the primal phenological phact, because wherever you are on this planet, the weather today is pretty much expected to be similar to the weather a year ago, ten years ago, a century ago, or a thousand years ago. Yes, I know all about global warming and the ice age, but the patterns in the North County have long been to have some very cold days in January and a few hot days in July. In the southern hemisphere, the seasons are flipped, and at different latitudes, the winter and summer seasons will be longer or shorter. However, the seasons repeat every 365 days, which the Romans and others divided into months of about 30 days each.

However, there is no consensus as to when the year begins. The ancient Romans and Greeks started their year in March, because that marked the beginning of spring in their world, and they went so far as to have special names for most of the months. From time to time, as political fortunes changed, the names and lengths of the months were changed. For example, the fifth and sixth months were re-named July and August to honor Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar. To ensure that these months honoring the overthrow of the Roman Republic were among the longest, the Romans extracted an extra day for each of them from the end of the year, which then was February. This “Caesarian Selection” explains why February has only 28 days.

However, for some reason, the Romans failed to leave us with special names for the next four months, which can be translated as Month 7, Month 8, Month 9, and Month 10.  We have kept these unimaginative names, even though our twelve-month calendar now ends in what we call the Month 10!

Over the next couple of thousand years, phenological concerns led to the addition of an extra day at the end of every fourth year, as well as some minor adjustments to ensure that the time we allot to each year is in fact the same as the actual time that it takes the earth to orbit the sun. We can easily accept an extra day now and then to catch up on our reading or housecleaning in return for knowing that seasons, wherever we live, will be pretty much the same year after year.

Well, this is a long introduction to explain that this month’s essay begins in the frozen month of January solely to be in alignment with our calendar year. Starting in March, when the first of the migrating birds show up in the North Country, would be much more logical, just as biographies generally start with the famous person’s birth, not with their funeral. Well, this introduction may seem a bit ridiculous, but the rest of this essay really is for the birds.

January

Turkeys refuse to be intimidated by winter, they distain the handouts offered to small birds at out feeders, they happily ignore us as they walk across our roads and through our yards, and they enjoy the open views through the woods as much as any cross-country skier.

January 8, 2009 very windy, cloudy, 28 degrees. A half dozen turkeys had wandered in and out of small firs on either side of the snowmobile trail that goes over Bronson Hill. This might have been the same group of 8 turkeys that walked through the back yard two days ago.

January 25, 2016, 28 degrees. About eight inches of old power covered the Lower 40, where I found many tracks – deer, hare, maybe a fox, and small animals. On my return, I heard loud squawks, then saw two, no four turkeys fly off from their perches three quarters of the way up some tall maples, high above the area where Nancy often sees flocks of turkeys as she takes her walks down Pearl Lake Road. A fifth flew off as I veered up the slope toward the power lines.

January 8, 2018. A small group of turkeys huddled in the big willow in our back yard.

February

I recall seeing my first cardinal back around 1956 when we visited my cousins in Darien, Connecticut. Since these birds had not yet made it to Rhode Island, I was very excited to see such a colorful bird. I also recall seeing my first cardinal in the North Country about 20 years ago, but my records and photos only confirm four more sightings before 2014.  However, over the past ten years, cardinals have not only become regular summer residents, they now show up here in the winter. Even the purple finch cannot top the brilliance of a male cardinal sitting on a snow-covered fir tree.

February 14, 2019. A cardinal sat in the fir tree, eyeing the sunflower seeds available in the feeder.

March

In March, the true beginning of the phenological year, spring is still more than a month away, but the arrival of the first migrating birds signals the beginning of the phenological year. Red-winged blackbirds are already checking out the nesting sites around the frozen pond and dropping by the feeder with the finches and titmice.  Redwings are often found in early spring with starlings or grackles in a large group of blackbirds, but only the redwings will be summer residents by the pond, which is why I have chosen them as the bird of the month for March.

March 3, 2022. The first group of redwings showed up at the feeder, all of them males or juveniles

April

Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers are the most beautiful of the North Country woodpeckers, and also the most industrious. Since they aren’t shy, you can watch them pecking their well-aligned holes in a birch tree in order to start the sap flowing for them and for a host of insects.

April 24, 2017, 55 degrees, noon. The first sapsucker of the year tried out some new holes on a birch near the wood shed. He’d peck a half dozen times; wait; look left, right and around at me; more pecking; repeat. He defecated three times in 12 minutes. I remained motionless to see how long it would stay on the tree: 1147 to 1158. When he finally left, he merely flew to the next tree a few feet away. Then I moved, scaring it. Later, while I was at the shed cutting wood to 5-foot lengths, another one (a juvenile?) landed on the side of the shed only two feet from my eye! It saw me and quickly departed. I came back with my camera, and eventually managed some photos.

April 24, 2017. A yellow-bellied sapsucker worked on drilling its rows of holes in the birch tree by the entrance to the Upper Meadow. Sapsuckers have been doing the same thing to this tree for many years, and the sap flowing from these holes attracts butterflies, ants and wasps throughout the summer.

May

Cedar waxwings are elegant, aristocratic, and ever so delicate in choosing a tiny fruit or a flower blossom for themselves or their mates. I have often come across a small flock of waxwings feeding in an apple tree covered with bright blossoms or a fruit tree full of ripe berries.  Our first spring in Sugar Hill, we were so excited to see them hanging out in the birches and alders lining the pond, that we named the pond “Waxwing Pond”.

May 30, 2020, 75 degrees, partly cloudy. A hard rain last night brought the temperatures down from the high 80s to mid-90s that we had to endure the last three days. A flock of a half dozen waxwings were in the apple trees before the solar array. More than one of them was eating the blossoms, one petal at a time.

June

By June, most of the summer residents have built a nest, found a suitable birdhouse, or settled into a comfortable hole excavated by a woodpecker. In the front yard, blue birds and tree swallows have battled over the bird house.

May 29, 2004. Mr. Bluebird is staking a claim on the front house, but Mrs.is nowhere to be seen. So far, the tree swallows are also absent. Mr. perched on the post about 1pm, looked about for several minutes, dropped down to the top of the house, looked some more, then dropped to the perch on the front of the house. Very warily, he then leaned forward and, for barely a microsecond, poked his head into and out of the opening. He looked around again, then went in for another microsecond view. He repeated this a third time, then flew to the apple tree and then the wire.

            The next morning, Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird were both here – and so was a tree swallow. By the 31st, the battle for the bird house was in full sway. At 10am, the tree swallow stuck his head out. At 1010, the bluebird approached and the swallow flew out at him. They first had 5-10 seconds of very close order chasing, then fell to the ground for 3-5 seconds of pecking and wing flapping, and then the bluebird flew away. On June 1st, the tree swallows seemed to have control over the bird house.

Last year the blue birds won, and we could see the parents flying in and out to feed their brood:

June 8, 2023, late afternoon. I watched the bluebirds feeding their young. The female first brought a green inch-worm, then a larger worm. Sometimes she’d wait nearby a half minute or more, but other times she’d pop right in. Lots of activity at first, as both parents brought in food, but after 20 minutes, they didn’t come back. After ten more minutes, she returned without any food, sat atop the pole for a minute, then flew off.

June 14, 2023, 70 degrees, partly sunny, 10am. Mrs. Bluebird sat on one of Nancy’s planter sticks when I sat down on the porch to eat my cereal. Mr. flew in and landed on a neighboring stick, and both stared at their house for a minute or so. Then Mrs. flew over, peeked in, and flew off. Mr. did the same.

I eventually found a chance to slowly open the door to take a couple of photos. At least five nestlings nestled together in their nest, but only two of them bothered to take a look at the man who had let the sunlight into their bedroom.

June 14, 2023. Later in the day, when the nestlings had had enough to eat, the parents both flew away for their lunch, and I was able to take a peek inside for this photo.

[To be continued]

Phenological Phacts and Photos with Carl Martland / December 2024

Year in Review

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).”

Approaching the End of the Year

A couple of weeks ago, a dozen robins ranged over the lawn, not to be seen since. Last week, a pair of adults and two juvenile hooded mergansers spent a few days in the pond, perhaps the same ones who were here for most of May and June. Two days ago, when the sun was still shining and the temperature reached 50 degrees, four blue birds, inspected the Front Bird House and poked around the bird bath and the patio. Today, as I’m working on this essay, the sun is no longer shining, the summer birds are far away, and the snow is falling. It’s perilously close to winter.

This is a good time to the think about the year’s highlights before we’re overwhelmed with preparations for the approaching holidays. And that is exactly what I’m doing with this essay. After looking back at this year’s PPPs, I’ve selected a favorite photo and a few descriptive lines from each one of them.

I’ve also selected the above photo of an evening grosbeak that was part of my first PPP back in January 2021. As I wrote back then, “What an extraordinary bird! Like Jimmy Durante, this bird shows no embarrassment regarding the size of his beak.”

January 16, 2021. A small group of evening grosbeaks flew up as I approached the kitchen window. One returned, sat atop the pole holding the feeder, and posed for a photo before flying off to join his pals.

January: A Virtual Caribbean Vacation

For many years, Nancy and I escaped the winter doldrums by spending a week in a unique campground located by Maho Bay on St. John in the Virgin Islands. 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.

February: Washington’s Bird Day

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 shade of – what? More pink or scarlet than purple. Whatever name we use, the colors extend to pale stripes on the breast of the purple finch, whereas the more prominent breast stripes of the house finch are brownish.

Purple Finch, February 5, 2022.

March: Enough Already?

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

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, a hairy woodpecker, and a titmouse

But then about seven pine grosbeaks stopped by, staying long enough for a photo session.

April: Spring Break

Last April, we spent most of a week on the Maine coast near York Harbor and Ogunquit. 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. 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.

May: Turtle Life

We seldom think about the social life or family values of turtles. After all, when we see them, they’re usually just sitting motionless on a rock or a log at the edge of a pond. However, I have noticed that youngsters do like to stay close to the larger turtles, and this photo suggests that there may in fact be some sort of family attachment among turtles.

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.

June: Summer Solstice

Even with a digital camera, I find it difficult to get photos showing enough detail to distinguish among the many look-alike species pf butterflies. Often, a good photo of the underside of the wings is required to see the key identifying marks, which is a problem for the many species that seldom land at all or land with their wings spread. However, this is not a problem for Harris Checkerspots, since they proudly display the underside of their wings while posing on a branch or a leaf with their wings folded.

Harris Checkerspot, June 21, 2022

July: The Usual Suspects

When I go out to the pond in mid-summer, I always hope to see something spectacular, such as a pair of otters or a great blue heron stalking frogs along the shore. Though I approach slowly, camera at the ready, I am well aware that there most likely will be no otters and no heron 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.

For example, I often see a mid-sized dragonfly with bright green eyes and a bulge at the tip of its abdomen. While I know that it’s an emerald, because of its wonderful eyes and its club tail, I don’t know whether it’s a racket-tailed emerald or an American emerald. Both species look pretty much the same, and they seem to spend their daylight hours flying in and out, hovering for several seconds, and then flying to another spot. Do I care that I can only record seeing an “emerald”? Not much, but I am quite happy when one lands and stays still long enough for a photo.

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)

August: Skippers – Hiding in Plain Sight

The skipper family of butterflies includes nearly 300 species in the U.S., but nearly all the common species in the North Country are too small and too drab to notice. Some have bright orange patches that, if they ever pose for more than a few seconds, will be seen to be beautiful. If you look closely, you will also notice that their forewings are spread out like those of other butterflies, but their hindwings are held straight up.” 

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. Withing 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.

August 27, 2019. A Least Skipper on a stalk of grass on our dam. Only with a close-up photo like this is it possible to identify one of these small, orange/brown skippers.

September: The Quick and the Dead

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 focus on an area where one has hovered and wait it to return. Well, last August, while I was trying unsuccessfully to focus on one hovering at our end of the pond, 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 my camera in hand, ready to document what happened next in a series of photos and videos. The best photo showed the frog grabbing the abdomen of the dragon fly and positioning it so it would be easier to swallow. In all my hours of watching frogs by the side of our pond, I had only seen a frog catch a dragonfly or a damselfly a couple of times, and I had never seen, let alone photographed, a frog using its hand to do anything!

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.

October: Goldenrods

My October essay provided photos designed to help you (and me) figure out how to identify the dozen or more species of goldenrod that are commonly found in the North Country. Now, barely two months later, I find that I am more comfortable with my assessment at the beginning of that essay:

By this time of the year, goldenrod and asters have overwhelmed our roadsides and meadows with their massed legions of colorful plants. 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.

Since you are even less likely than me to remember or care about the quirks of different kinds of goldenrods, I’ll show a more interesting photo from my archives. Photos of flowers are almost always enhanced by insects, but this photo is quite special!

September 9, 2019. A very, very young and beautiful grasshopper perches on some goldenrod on the dam.

 November: Lake District Colors

If you have ever spent a few days in the countryside of Merry Old England, you will certainly have witnessed scenes of hillsides, stone buildings, and little streams such as we enjoyed last month in the Lake District.  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, so colorful for tourists, and so nutritional for sheep. Thus, in my essay about Lake District colors, it would have been remiss to neglect mentioning 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, as shown in this photo of the view across Derwent Water toward the Jaws of Borrowdale. A poet once described this as “the third best view in Europe.” I’m not sure about such high praise, but the view is certainly magnificent, especially in the mood created by glowering clouds and distant mists.

October 22, 2024. Across Derwent Water toward the Jaws of Borrowdale

First Snow

I’ll finish this essay with another photo from my first PPP back in January 2021. The red berries in this photo were about to be covered by the snow that was just starting to fall, and this was perhaps the last flash of color before the snow piled up and whitened the landscape.  By coincidence, while finishing off this essay, I once again noticed wrinkled berries providing a splash of color at the meadow’s edge as the first snows started to fall.

December 12, 2017.

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.