I always get lots of mileage out of my trips to northern New England. Here are a few more shots Continue reading
A few more from the Great North Woods
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Author Archives: Chris Bosak
For the Birds: Whole-bird approach to birdwatching
Look up “wood duck” in a cheap field guide and you’ll likely see a beautiful duck with green, pewter, tan, white and even some blue plumage. That is, indeed, a wood duck — a male wood duck in its breeding plumage.
If you saw a female wood duck, immature wood duck or male wood duck in its non-breeding plumage, you’d never find it in that field guide and you’d have a hard time believing someone who told you it was a wood duck because it looks nothing like the beautiful bird in the field guide.
Sometimes field guides lie. Well, they leave out a lot of the truth at least. There are top-quality field guides out there and even they can’t portray every bird in every possible plumage. Between the breeding, non-breeding and transitional plumages, it’s impossible to fit every variation of every bird into a book. That’s not even to mention all the other plumage oddities, such as leucism, albinoism and other conditions.
The same can be said for bird sounds as well. There are dozens of apps and websites out there now that feature bird sounds, but as terrific and helpful as they are, they can’t Continue reading
Yet even more from northern New Hampshire
Here are a few more photos of my trip to northern New Hampshire (Pittsburg and Lake Umbagog). Yes, there will probably be yet another post or two coming up …
As I had mentioned in previous posts, I have been going up to visit the Great North Woods for nearly 30 years now and I’ve never seen so many turkeys as I did on this trip. They were Continue reading
More from northern New England
Here are a few more shots from northern New England, admittedly not as cool as yesterday’s moose post.
A heartening moose sighting
People come to the North Country for a lot of reasons: fishing, hunting, endless ATV and snowmobile trails, wildlife watching, etc. Those who are here wildlife watching (and I think I can speak for many people) have moose as their primary target. Unfortunately, the moose population throughout New England has declined dramatically over the last several years. Biologists blame most of the decline on winter ticks, which are thriving in the warmer winters and wreaking havoc on moose.
A fair number of moose remain, which is the good news, but the decline makes it that much harder to find them. Driving along Route 3 in Pittsburg, N.H., for instance, used to be a guarantee for moose sightings. Cars would line up in the evening around the salt licks and wait for the moose to show up. The salt licks are no longer and the remaining moose are scattered throughout the vast forest. It now takes a lot more skill, knowledge and luck to find a moose in northern New Hampshire. Mostly luck.
I was lucky and fortunate enough the other morning to find a moose — three moose, actually, as it was a cow with twin calves. I launched the canoe on a popular pond (fen, really) in Pittsburg, N.H, Monday morning, waited out a heavy rainfall under the cover of evergreens, relaunched after the rain, paddled around a corner and saw the three moose. They were the first moose I had seen in years and I stopped the canoe a good distance from them and admired the scene. I was beyond thrilled to see the moose, of course, but I was equally happy to see the twins. I hope they both grow up to be healthy adults and do not succumb to winter ticks like so many other moose. I hope they are a sign that things are turning around for New England’s moose population. That’s probably being naive, but I can always hope.
That’s been my only moose sighting on this trip north so far. I’ll keep searching.
Back to the North Country
With work pleading with employees to use vacation time and half (or more) of the country pretty sketchy at the moment, I did what I’ve been wanting to do for years: take another summer vacation to northern New England — specifically northern New Hampshire and the boreal forest.
The trip started in Errol on Lake Umbagog and now continues in Pittsburg, which borders Canada. Here are a few photos I’ve managed so far. More to come — of course.
The main target is moose. New England’s largest mammal, however, is having a rough go of it of late. Here’s why.
For the Birds: Complain and they will come
Here’s the latest For the Birds column, which runs weekly in several New England newspapers …
Apparently, all I had to do to get my hummingbirds back this summer was complain to my neighbor.
I had had frequent visits from both male and female hummingbirds early in the spring. The daily visits continued for a few weeks and then stopped abruptly. Last year, and the year before that, the visits never stopped and I saw them daily until the fall.
This year, June was largely a hummingbird-free month in my backyard.
During a walk around the neighborhood last week, I noticed a neighbor had bird feeders on her deck so I stopped to chat about what birds she had been seeing. She had a few of the usual suspects but didn’t mention hummingbirds.
I inquired about the tiny birds and she said: “Yes. I see them every day.”
“That’s great,” I replied. “I haven’t seen mine in a while.”
I went on to bore her with the details of my previous years’ good fortune. She feigned interest, we chatted a little more and then said goodbye.
The birding gods must have heard me griping and took pity on me because, the very next day, a female hummingbird showed up at my feeder. She has been back every day since, too. It is very territorial as I have seen her chase away other hummingbirds. Another female and a male have started showing up now and then, too, when the queen is away.
In previous years, a female has dominated my feeders throughout the summer so I wonder if she is the same bird I have been seeing for years. At any rate, it is nice to see the hummingbirds back in the yard. It is also nice to know there are several of them, even if I get only brief glimpses of the other ones before they are chased away.
I have a few feeders and several flowers to lure the hummingbirds. She prefers the feeders, but on occasion will sip from the flowers. This year, most of my flowers are red salvia, an annual with tubular shaped blooms. In the past, I’ve seen hummingbirds visit my coneflower and even sunflowers.
Complaining usually doesn’t solve problems and often makes them worse, but in this case, things worked out pretty well. I plan to take a trip to northern New England in a few weeks in the hopes of finding some of New England’s disappearing moose. Maybe I should proactively start complaining now in the hopes of getting the same results for that trip?
Ruby-throated hummingbird on salvia
A Day on Merganser Lake
A random hummingbird photo never hurt anyone.
Chipping sparrow keeps watch
A Day on Merganser Lake
This chipping sparrow likes to land on one of my garden stakes that supports my snow peas. If only it and its friends would take care of the caterpillars ravaging my Brussels sprouts.
Catbirds of summer
A Day on Merganser Lake
What would summer be without catbirds? A lot less interesting, that’s for sure.
The bird above is doing its cat-like call. The bottom photo shows the rusty spot under the tail, which is not often seen.
Birds of New England.com 