Following the Town Line and working our way up and around Rollstone Mountain

An early start this morning, since Al had to work at 3.  Owen had maple sap simmering on the wood stove when I arrived at 7 to meet Al.  I love the smell of sap evaporating and often put my face over the pan to get a  "maple facial", as Owen calls it.  I don't know whether it does anything for my complexion, but I do love the smell of maple syrup.

The last couple of weeks we have been exploring in the northeast corner of Nelson.  New snow has provided many opportunities for tracking.  Last week it was primarily fisher and the week before, bobcat.  This week, it had been a few days since we had snow, but the snow was soft and we hoped to have another banner day of tracking.  What one hopes for doesn't always come to pass however.  We saw some faint tracks as we walked across Rye Pond to find the corner marker for the Nelson/Stoddard/Antrim town line, some newer tracks that were probably coyote, and turkey tracks on the edge of the pond, but after that, we found a few squirrel tracks, but no more, for a long time. But that freed us up to look for other things of interest, and to actually try to follow the town line this time.

As we made our way across Rye Pond, I could see a light colored post, or what looked like a post to me.  I decided to check it out.  From a distance, it looked like a porcupine stripped tree, but it was too short to be a tree.  Curious, I made my way up the slope to see for myself.  It looked like a dead tree, or a branch from a dead tree.  It was totally stripped of bark, but it was also pockmarked, as if a pileated woodpecker had taken every last bug from the branch.  I'm still not sure if that was what happened, but it sure was dramatic.

Soon after, we found the corner marker for the Nelson/Stoddard/Antrim town line and turned around to go back across the pond to find the marker on the other side.  Half way across the pond, I looked down to see a small spider crawling on the surface of the snow.  Not all the small creatures disappear for the winter. Some spiders do remain active, at least when the weather warms up.  I couldn't imagine the perspective of that spider crawling across the pond.  How vast the expanse must have seemed to her.

We crossed the pond and Route 123 and made our way up the slope.  The town line should have been to the southwest, but we found markers leading in another direction.  It didn't make sense, so we followed the direction we believed to be correct and found the stone wall that marked the line.  This stone wall led to the top of Rollstone Mountain.  But along the way, we found a couple of bear clawed beech trees and bear nests in the trees, as well as an amazing view of North and South Pack Monadnock to the south and Route 123 curving to the east.  We sat and had a few snacks and enjoyed the view for a while before heading up to  the top.   At the top of Rollstone Mountain, there is a large boulder with an arrangement of small rocks in the shape of a bridge.   We cleared the snow away, and Al added a snow bridge on top of the first. The snow is perfect for packing , so I tried to add a third, but it collapsed    So, I decided to add a stack of snowballs one at a time until they collapsed.  I was able to stack 8 snowballs before they tumbled and we moved on.

Okay, this post is not sequential because now I am going to talk about the cool spruce forest that we found on the way up Rollstone Mountain. The spruce grove was on the Nelson side of the wall.  "Dark" was the way that Al first described it, but I thought "mysterious" was much more inviting, and who knows but what we might find an owl in one of the trees, or some interesting tracks.  Well, tracks and owls were not in evidence, but it was an interesting place, with spruce trees of about the same age.  We imagined  that the area had been cleared about 60 years ago. The spruces had grown up together and crowded out almost all the trees.  We found a few hardwood trees, but other than that, just spruce.

We followed the stone wall with hopes to find the corner between Nelson, Hancock and Antrim, before making our way back to the car.   It was all downhill from there, so why not?   Along the way, Al found a couple bouncy fallen logs and we took another break to act like a couple of kids and bounce.  Between throwing snowballs, making a snowball tower, sliding down small boulders with our snowshoes, and bouncing on logs, we returned to our childlike ways for a little while.

We followed the stone wall for quite a ways, getting closer to Lake Nubanusit.  Just when we thought that we would never find the corner marker, Al decided to cross the stone wall.  I followed and looked to my right to see a tree marked with three blazes as well as a tree on the other side of the wall similarly marked.  We had found the corner where Antrim, Hancock and Nelson meet!   If Al hadn't chosen that spot to cross, we would have missed the marks, because they were on the downhill side.  

That goal accomplished we turned away from the wall to skirt around Rollstone Mountain's western slope.  Still no tracks to speak of, but we didn't give up.  We followed a steep draw which took us up to the saddle between Rollstone and Holt Hill, and finally, on our way down the other side, we found snowshoe hare tracks as well as a couple of piles of scat.  We wondered if we had scared the hares and they had taken flight on hearing us coming.  But we found no definitive answer to our musings.  We came to a spot which we would like to revisit in the spring--It looked like a good vernal pool possibility.

From there we followed a stream which, we could see from the map, would flow into Rye Pond.  We were hopefully to find mink tracks along the stream, but no such luck.  Just not a good tracking day.  We did find a lot of snow fleas or springtails and spent some up close and personal time with them (but we didn't eat them as we had last spring).

Well pecked tree limb or stump.

Winter cattails at Rye Pond

Boulder as big as a house.  

Boulder as big as a house--looked like a house from a distance.

Well pecked tree limb or snag.

North Pack Monadnock

Pack Monadnock

Snow arch over stone arch over Rollstone Mountain top boulder

Very interesting ripples in this broken trunk--I think that it is maple.  

I just thought the lichen and the fungus together was pretty.

Snowshoe Hare Scat--notice how round it is.

Spring tail close-up

Springtails or "Snow Fleas"

Yellow birch bud--note the ridges in the stem--very distinctive.

Even though we didn't find a lot of tracks this day, we will still count the walk as a success for all the interesting things we saw, the new territory we explored and the fun we had together.  There is absolutely never a bad day in the Nelson Wilds!

From start to finish, a great day to be outside!

Most Mondays, for I don't know how many years, I have been walking around Granite Lake with my friend, Sharon Oliver.   We often see ducks, loons or geese on the lake during the months when the lake is ice-free, and once in a while we have had some unusual sightings, such as turkey vultures hanging out in some trees, and otters chattering at us from near the shore.  Last winter, we saw a mink cross the road in front of us and a number of years ago, we saw a juvenile moose in the woods at the corners of North and West Shore Road.

Today, we were blessed with another of those close encounters of the natural kind.  Just past the Frechette's house, on the Stoddard side of the lake, I caught a glimpse of something large in my peripheral vision.  I turned to look and saw a doe coming across the field in front of the Frechette's barn.   The deer seemed determined to come our way.  Since Bailey had not noticed the deer, I turned him toward me so that he wouldn't see it as it crossed the road just 25 yards in front of us.  The deer then cut across the small patch of land between the road and the lake and walked out on the lake.   We stood quietly and watched it until it had moved to the middle of the lake.  We didn't see it again on our walk and wondered where it had gone, but we didn't doubt that it had successfully made the trek across the lake without falling through.  We were awed by the sight of a deer so near to us.

Then, as I traveled down Murdough Hill Road to meet Al for our weekly Monday exploration, I saw four Tom turkeys cross the road near the Tarr's house.  I stopped to admire their beautiful plumage.  So many colors and designs.  I can only assume that the female turkeys will be all a gaga with these handsome Toms.  Or should I say, "a gobble-gobble?'

Al and I had decided to try our luck at following a portion of the Stoddard/ Nelson town line again today.  We had a great adventure last week, tracking a bobcat through the woods, but had done little to follow the line between Route 123, near Rye Pond, to Old Stoddard Road.  The distant wasn't difficult,  but we get so easily side-tracked by good animal sign.

Well, it happened again.  We hadn't even gotten our snowshoes on before we were waylaid by weasel tracks.  Well, not really waylaid, but we forgot quickly about following the town line.  The tracks were right behind my car.  In fact, the best set was right under my back bumper.  A good omen for the day.

We had one major obstacle to cross before we could begin our adventure in earnest: Bailey Brook.  Most of the brook flowed freely and it is not a particularly narrow stream so we had to find a spot to cross where we (hopefully) wouldn't get our feet wet.  Al found a snow bridge that seemed to provide a safe crossing.  He went first, tamping down the snow on one side and testing the bridge to see if it would hold our weight without breaking.  He made it across without too much trouble, though one of his snowshoes broke through the snow into open water.  No wet feet, though.  I tried to follow the same route, except to avoid the spot where his right snowshoe had broken through.  No such luck--my left snowshoe went in the brook, and a little water seeped into my boot, but Al hauled me up the opposite bank before I went in any further.  I am always thankful for his willingness to provide the extra support in tough spots.  Sometimes I'm fine on my own, but today, I was especially grateful for his help.

With Bailey Brook behind us, we got on to the business of tracking.  The snow was pretty good, with a firm crust, and a dusting of powder.  Within minutes we came upon what we thought at first were red fox tracks.   But as we followed them further, we became convinced that we were following a fisher.  Our second muskelid (member of the weasel family) of the day. This was an exciting find for us, as we had only seen old fisher tracks so far this winter and these tracks offered up the opportunity to really follow a fisher and observe, through its tracks,some of its habits.  Following the town line would have to wait for another day.  Fisher tracks won't last long.  

We followed the tracks into some really interesting terrain, and crossed another set of fisher tracks, smaller than the first.  We paused at one point to see how many different species of trees that we could identify.  We found 10 species in that one area and decided to pay specific attention to see if we could find more species while we moved through the woods.   At the end of the day, we had identified sixteen species, but some of our favorite trees were noticeable absent.  Here is a list of the trees that we identified: white pine, red maple, sugar maple, black cherry, hemlock, red spruce, balsam, red oak, pin cherry, ash, big toothed aspen, striped maple, yellow birch, black birch, white or paper birch, and beech.  We didn't find hop hornbeam or quaking aspen, red pine or service berry, but we decided to make it a habit to pay attention to the tree species in the woods where we hike in the future.  It will be interesting to see if we can find more species than sixteen in one day's hike.

We tracked the fisher to Old Stoddard Road, near the Bailey Brook Falls trail, but lost the track for a while. The fisher had traveled along the road, then headed back into the woods, just below Peter Reichel's house.  Our happiness at returning to the trail was short lived however.   The wind blowing across the field had filled in the tracks and they were no longer visible.   We don't give up easily, though.  We skirted around the cleared area and back into the woods until we came upon some fox and deer tracks.  We followed the gray fox tracks until they disappeared in crusty snow under the evergreens.  But more interesting terrain beckoned to us and we were off in a new direction.

A new direction which led us to fisher tracks again!  This time, we also found five scent posts, spots which the fishers mark with scat and urine and rolling in the snow.  It appeared that we were in a high traffic area, or at least that the fisher had gone one way and returned following the same track.  Interesting!   The tracks were sometimes so clear and other times we had to search in a spiraling pattern to find them again.  In a grove of hemlocks, we found a large pile of scat, which we thought was porcupine, but with no other sign of porcupine--no hemlock boughs littering the ground.  No porcupine tracks.  But fresh deer tracks.  Deer scat has so much variability to its shape and consistency based on what the deer eat, that it often masquerades as something else.  But there is no mistaking the deer bed and the tracks that we found.  Must be deer scat.

We also found one set of snowshoe hare tracks.  What was most confusing for us was the number of times we mistook a series of "snow plops" for tracks.   We wondered if we could hone our snow plop identification skills to the point where we could look at the ground and figure out the species of tree from which the snow had fallen.  Wouldn't that be amazing?   One particular large snow plop resembled, at least to our eyes, the ever elusive mastodon track that Al is looking for.   But with only one track, the mastodon would have had to be flying. Another set of "tracks" looked like snake tracks, but turned out to be the path of a chunk of crusty snow that had rolled down the hill like a tire.

Having lost sight of the fisher tracks again, we decided to try following the town line finally.  In the process, we came upon Whimsy Brook, an area that we had explored a few times before.  The first time we explored here, we gave the brook its name and so shall it ever be known, at least to us.  We paused at Town Line Wetlands for a snack of cheese, fruit, bread and cookies, and observed moose tracks and a fresh moose scraped tree. The snow fell gently in large flakes as we rested on a fallen tree.

Taking a compass reading and determining which way to follow the markers for the town line, we set out to return to the place where we began.  On this particular day, we guessed at north many times, with a low rate of success.  Following the twists and turns of a fisher is a sure fire way to loose one's bearings.  Thankfully, we don't have to rely on our internal compasses.   Having an actual compass at hand is so important.  With relative ease, we found and followed the survey tape marking the town line and soon returned to my car.  Of course, we had to cross Bailey Brook again.  Al took stock of a likely spot and easily jumped the stream, while I hemmed and hawed at the crossing.  If you think too long, the distance seems farther and more difficult than it is.  I managed it but not without falling forward into the bank and not without Al's ready hand to pull me up.  No top marks for grace for me.

We returned to the car and found the weasel tracks still clear in the thin layer of snow at the turnaround.   After a meandering exploration, we were pleased to have the reminder of what began our full and interesting day in the woods of Nelson and Stoddard.

See you in the woods!   Kathy and Al

I forgot to mention the great pile of pileated woodpecker chips and scat.  We found  ant heads and legs in the scat.

Weasel Tracks

More weasel tracks

Fisher tracks

More fisher tracks

 A little bit of fisher fur at a scent post. 

Fisher scat at a scent post.

The view from the wind swept field.

Pileated woodpecker holes just above the snow.

Notice where the fisher rubbed in the snow as well as the scat.

This snow sculpture was attached delicately to the  windward side of a tree.

Here you can see how it is attached to this birch tree.  

A "B"-eautiful Day

A Day like today calls for a bit of alliteration, so off we go.
Here we have a bobcat bed in leaves(you can't see the indentation of the bobcat's body, but it's there).

Bobcat bed 2

Bobcat bed 2

Big Boulder (Bobcat bed is beneath)

Bear beech beside big boulder with bobcat bed beneath

Bear beech claw marks

More claw marks, maybe baby bears (i.e., cubs)

Bounteous Bear marks (or maybe some porcupine, but that doesn't start with  "B")

Bough burdened beneath by snow.

Branch bedecked and be-ribboned

Bewildered and befuddled--what is this for?

Bug alive--believe it!

Bug belongs in bobcat bed (or that's where we found it).

Bounteous beauty and blessings found in a small area between Route 123 and Bailey Brook  Road.
Brief and bracing (especially when the snow went down our backs) bounding on a bonny day!

Of Otters, Mink and Bobcats

Bit of a late start this Monday, since I was at a funeral of a dear friend in the morning.  But how grateful I felt to be able to get out to enjoy this beautiful day.  The sky was crystal clear blue.  The temperature was around 20 degrees and the wind was blowing, but thankfully, not as strongly as it had blown overnight.  Our friend, Wendy, was able to join us because she had the day off for the Presidents Day holiday.  It's always fun to have her along.  She shares our enthusiasm for all the wonders of nature and can see the beauty in the simple elements of the natural world.

We delayed the start of our hike to admire the two sets of twin lambs born to Owen's ewes last week.  The second set was born on Valentine's Day, hence the names "Valentina and Valentino".  These twins are both white, so now Owen has one black lamb and 3 white.  One more ewe has yet to deliver.  Hopefully, next week's post will include an announcement of yet more lambs.

Al convinced us that the snow had settled enough that we didn't need snowshoes.  Now, with sore legs, I am not so sure that was the right thing, at least not for me.  The snow had settled some and formed a thin crust but it was still difficult to get through the 2 to 3 foot deep white stuff.  The wicked "Charlie Horse" that hit me later in the evening bears out my assertion.  Snowshoes would have made it easier for me, I think.

The hill behind Al and Owen's house is steep, but we were soon on the edge of Center Pond, looking out on Al's old snowshoe tracks, filled in from windy days and nights since the blizzard.  It was a little easier travelling across the pond, but short lived.  We passed the two beaver lodges and came upon otter tracks heading into the woods.  This was not what we expected, because the inlet was just a few yards away and one would expect the otters to follow the stream.  Al surmised that the otters knew a shortcut to the beaver pond above Center Pond.  Turns out he was right.  We followed the otter tracks straight to the Beaver Pond.  It appeared that this route is a regular path for the otters as we could see tracks going both ways.  We also found mink tracks beside the otter tracks, faint in the dusting of snow, but clear enough in their pattern that we knew it was mink.

When we reached the beaver pond, we found that the otters had create a hole in the snow that gave them access to the water.  Around the hole, the snow was packed down from otters rolling and we found scat with fish scales in abundance.  This beaver pond is also a great blue heron rookery.  Al and I have been here in New Hampshire's fifth season (black fly season), and saw a great blue heron on one of the nest.  Today, we were able to walk right out to the nests and see them close up.  One nest sits apart from the rest and the others surround a large active beaver lodge.   Al took three beaver sticks off the top of the lodge to use for Morris sticks while I took pictures of the nests and lodge, and Wendy lamented that she didn't bring her camera.  We found one smaller  bird's nest hanging under a heron nest, right at our eye level.  Now that is one way to camouflage a nest in the middle of a wetlands-hide under a great blue heron nest.

We walked easily across the ice and shallow snow to the shore of the pond directly to another area where the otters had rolled and defecated in the snow and made about three more holes and tunnels in the snow down to the water.  We also found tunnels that the minks had built as well.  We looked up the hill in the direction we were headed and saw two spots where the beavers had harvested probably thirty small trees.   Al considered that the Morris sticks he had collected were being returned to their beginnings, at least until he came back to collect them.

With no more otter tracks to follow, we made our way up the hill, heading for the old summer house of the Redmonds off of Center Pond Road.  As we came closer to the house, we found porcupine tracks and a small hemlock that had been pretty well decimated by a porcupine.  It was at our level so that we could see where the porcupines had climbed out on the branches and munched to their hearts' content.  Arriving at one of the outbuildings, we discovered that someone else had preceded us to this place: snowshoe tracks in abundance.   We also found a bird's nest, probably phoebe, on the top of a pale green shutter.

We didn't linger long in this beautiful spot, though I would have liked to.  Wendy needed to get back to meet a friend.  As we headed down the hill and into the woods, we came upon the first set of bobcat tracks for the day as well as more porcupine tracks.   I wasn't convinced at first that the tracks were bobcat, but the pattern and the shape were enough for Al to feel sure, even though the tracks were filled in with snow and I couldn't see the definition of each paw print at all.

Along the way, we followed the bobcat tracks, came upon a few deer tracks, and amazingly, more otter tracks.  Where these tracks were headed, we didn't have the time or the energy to find out.  We trudged on, occasionally stopping to snack on cookies or cheese, and to identify trees.  Wendy is taking a tree and shrub identification class at the Harris Center and it was good practice to be out in the woods using what she has learned.   We also found some bear clawed trees, one likely climbed many years ago and one more recently, but not this year.   We didn't see any bear nests, but that's okay.  We had been blessed with a lot of great sights this day.

 As we grew tired, we got a little punchy.  Wendy suggested we stop correctly identifying the trees and call them whatever we wanted.  So, I proclaimed one tree a palm tree.  Al asked whether it was a date palm or a coconut.  Wendy identified a banana tree (but are banana plants trees?) and another tree was an eucalyptus.  Are you picking up the pattern here?  Every tree we pretended to identify of tropical origin.

After a course correction, we soon reached Lead Mine Road, thankfully!  Wendy let out a whoop of joy to be on level ground at last.  Al, who had been breaking trail for most of the hike, didn't say much, though I am sure he was relieved as well.  The sun had set by the time we got back to Al's house and it was long past the time which Wendy had hoped to be back.  But a quick phone call bought her enough time to have a cup of cocoa with Al and me, our happy ending to almost every winter hike.   Satisfying, very satisfying afternoon.

Otter tracks

Notice the hairs in the bottom of this otter hole.

What the entrance to the tunnel looks like in natural light, without the flash and close up.

A complete set of otter tracks

Heron Rookery and active beaver lodge.  There are eight nest in total on this pond.

This nest was built directly under the heron nest.  Pretty good planning, I would say.   

Studio apartment and penthouse suite.

At the base of each snag, the snow had been swept away and the ice crystals were amazing.  

Moon over heron nest.

Entrance to a mink tunnel.

Another otter tunnel entrance.  We found four entrances in total.

A circle of beautiful ice around a beaver pond snag.

Phoebe nest on pale green shutter.  

New Lambs and a good forestland riddle

This past Monday, following the Blizzard of 2013, Al and I decided to go snowshoeing on the Great Meadow.  This turned out to be an ambitious undertaking considering the depth of the snow, especially where the snow had drifted.  Al took the lead at first and I was more than happy to follow his trail.   Snowshoeing through 2 to 3 feet of new snow is a good workout.  I took over in front from time to time but I have to admit that Al deserves the credit for breaking trail most of the time.

One thing about being out on the Meadow in the winter is that it is so much easier to find the birds' nests in the shrubbery.  Early on, we found a small and delicate nest at eye level.   Later we found a couple of bigger nests.  Now I can't tell what bird build which nest, but I think that it would be neat to determine what birds inhabit the meadows just by looking at the structure of the nest.  

From the time we left Nubanusit Road and followed a stream that flows out of Nubanusit Lake and into the Great Meadow, we could see old mink tracks.   Initially we followed the tracks down next to the stream and into the Meadows, but later, we had pull ourselves through a thick stand of alder.  Those minks can move with so much ease through the snow, but I am definitely not as sleek as a mink.

We lost the mink tracks and left the wetlands area of the Meadows to head into the woods around which the  stream flows.  The travelling was much easier in the woods--the snow is not as deep.  After a while, we came upon some fresh moose scrapings, or browse. No tracks in the new snow, so not that fresh, but clearly some time in the past month or so.  We were able to follow the trail of the moose from scrape to scrape for perhaps a hundred yards, but came to a point where we could find no more.  Perhaps the trees were just not as delectable in this part of the forest.   The woods are not very wide in this area, so we occasionally slipped back onto the Meadow to see what we could find. But it was tiring for Al to break trail so we didn't stay long.

Back in the woods again, we decided to stop for our customary snack.  A snowy day calls for a little fire to warm up, but we had to shake the snow off of the boughs overhead or we could imagine the snow putting out the fire in short order.  It's fun to build a fire on the snow.  As it burns, it melts a lovely bowl in the snow. And when we decided to get on the move again, we filled the bowl with snow to put the fire out.  By the way, it was a special snack on this particular day: homemade calzones from my birthday dinner the night before.  Tasted even better the second day.

Okay, folks, here's where the new forestland riddle comes in.  Al had been out in this area two weeks ago with his brother and found some porcupine sign, which consists of trees, particularly beech and yellow birch, stripped of bark.  We found the same porcupine sign again and it prompted a riddle.  Here it is: What do you call a smooth-barked tree that has been stripped by a porcupine?   Answer: A Nude Beech. So, if people ask me where we went this week, I can truthfully say that we snowshoed to the nude beech.

We made our way back to a point where we found our earlier tracks and rather than break trail, we followed our tracks.  Made the going a lot easier.   We finished where we started and topped our hike off by making snow angels in David Birchenough's front yard.  We didn't see anything spectacular on our hike this day, but when we returned to Al and Owen's house, Owen told us that one of his ewes had given birth to twins, a white male and a black female.  We were able to watch as the ewe cleaned the black lamb, born just moments before we returned and as the white lamb nursed.   Since that day, I learned that another ewe had given birth to twins.  I look forward to seeing the newest additions in a day or so, before our next adventure.  

Looks like a frog, or maybe a crocodile.