In the Bleak Mid-Winter
Late February - Early March
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).
By early March, though heavy snowfalls are still likely, there are at least a few signs of spring. Birds are sprucing up for the coming courtship seasons, and the owls that we have heard so often hooting in the darkness might actually deign to make an appearance. We start looking for a few adventurous birds arriving from points south, perhaps a couple redwings or even a stray robin, but we are more likely to see the same blue jays, chickadees, redpolls, juncos, finches and nuthatches that have been here for months. More animals are out and about, however, and you might even see an insect:
March 3, 2020, 54 degrees, sunny! Great day! I saw the first snow flea of the season, by the screen house. More weasel tracks, both mink and fisher, along with mole, snowshoe hare, deer and red squirrel tracks. Seems like more activity with the warmer weather.
Photos and text by Carl D. Martland, a founding member of ACT and a long-time resident of Sugar Hill. Quotations from his journals indicate the date of and the situation depicted in each photograph.
Changing Color:
Gold finches gather in small flocks by feeders throughout the winter, a time when their colors are so muted that they might as well be a bunch of unremarkable sparrows. By late-February, however, they display enough color to remind us why we’re so happy to see them in the summer.
February 15, 2016, minus 14 at 9am. The best group of finches we have yet seen gathered today at the feeder. A dozen goldfinches, a dozen purple finches, plus a couple of chickadees and a white-breasted nuthatch.One photo showed 26 birds on and around the feeder.
Otters on Ice:
Following tracks along through the forests and over frozen wetlands can make for a pleasant afternoon trying to figure out what the animal was doing and where it was going. We sometimes come across a foot-wide furrow in the snow made by deer walking back and forth for many days between their favorite places to eat or sleep. Other times we find a place where two sets of tracks converge – and only one set continues, possibly a fox that is not quite so hungry as it had been a while earlier. A couple of times we’ve been lucky to come across an otter’s tracks along an iced-over brook, but it was not until last March that we actually came upon a pair of otters out on a frozen wetland.
February 20, 1999, 30 degrees and sunny…we followed otter tracks all along Salmon Hole Brook, which was frozen enough to walk on in most places. Along the way, we came upon two holes cut in 4 inches of ice, apparently by beavers, since we saw beaver prints in the snow at the edge of one of them. There was an otter slide near the other one.
March 16, 2020, 30 degrees, beautiful, 5pm. We walked over the fields of Whipple Farm down to the ice-covered swamp. A dark spot on the far side of the ice wasn’t the log it appeared to be. No, it moved – it was an otter! Another one watched from the shore. I managed a couple of photos before they both disappeared into the brush.
Note: Whipple Farm, the 20-acre field next to Polly’s Pancake Parlor, is owned by ACT. If you walk up and over the hillside, you come down to a line of firs at the edge of the wetlands. In the winter, and only in the winter, you will surely be able to walk a long way along the shore, but I can’t guarantee that you will see an otter.
Something Special – Seeing a Barred Owl
Barred owls are the opposite of the well-behaved child – seldom seen, but often heard. It has been called the “eight-hooter”, because of its familiar call: “Who hoots for you! Who hoots for you!” Many of us have tried hooting back and forth with these beautiful creatures on a warm spring evening, but the best time to see them is in late winter. My journals only record six sightings in more than twenty years, and three of these were in the second week of March. That’s why I’m planning to take a couple of trips into the woods over the next few weeks.
March 11, 2005. A barred owl flew across Pearl Lake Road below where the power lines pass overhead.
March 9, 2007, 30 degrees, clear, still 2-3 feet of snow. I snowshoed out to Foss Woods, following the path I had broken last week. As I entered the poplar cut area, I saw a barred owl, which slowly flew off one tree, went to another about 10 yards away. I watched a bit, then walked and hooted – it ignored my call and flew another 20 yards and sat in the top of another tree.
March 9, 2011. Yesterday, I ran into my neighbor Jeannie Munro, who was excited about a barred owl that had perched for hours by her bird feeder, presumably waiting for an unsuspecting chickadee or red squirrel to show up for some seeds. Today she called to tell me that the owl was back, so I hurried over to take some photos.
Early Check-In
Redwing blackbirds are usually the first summer bird to return in the spring, often with a flock of other blackbirds. The earliest I have seen one in Sugar Hill was on March 5th in 2018 (photo). Last year, a scout arrived on the 7th, and the full platoon was here three days later.
March 7, 2020, 20 degrees, 8am. A lone redwing, the first of the year, joined a group of at least 16 blue jays feeding on the seeds I’d dropped by the spruce.
March 10, 2020.Yesterday, we heard some redwings calling by the still-frozen pond.Today, about two dozen were by the spruce, enjoying the birdseed spread out for them.
