Spring Air

Spring is in the air! The male red-winged blackbird has returned to his territory over a small wetland at the corner, chipmunks emerged from their winter slumber, a pair of downy woodpeckers chase each other around a tree trunk, red maple buds are swelling.

It is not just the sights that signal spring. This is the first morning of the year that the air smells like spring. Melting snow and warmer air is exposing bare ground and the bacteria, fungi, and decaying leaves and needles that were, until now, covered in deep snow. The trees too are shedding winter's grip.

Bathe in the sweet woodland air. Breathe deeply. The Japanese call this shinrin-yoku, forest air bathing and walking. In Japan they walk through forests for health; for many, breathing woodland air calms the mind and protects against illness. Seems to make me feel better.

Alas, here in our yard winter still has its grip. The setting sun behind our neighbor's house illuminates our front yard and garden still buried under snow. Planting peas and cilantro is still six or more weeks away.And the stonewalls and granite gate posts along Bald Hill Road are still buried, the chipmunks not yet ready to take up their posts along these roadside walls.

Each day will bring new spring events. Soon the vernal pools will break free of ice and the frogs and salamanders will make their way to these breeding habitats. In the meantime, get outside, breathe deeply, and bathe in the wood air. A refreshing way to start the day.

Sumac's Red Jewels

The story goes that someone once asked George Bernard Shaw if he knew that there were only two words in the English language that began with "su" and pronounced as "shu" -- sugar and sumac (the British pronounce this "shumac.") He replied, "Are you sure?"

Speaking of sumac. On the way to the snowshoe hare tracks of yesterday's post there is a broad, open clump of staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) growing along the field edge still holding its red fruits.


We have two species of sumac that grow into abandoned fields or edges of lawns. The staghorn has hairy twigs (photo at left), from a distance it looks like the velvet on a deer or stag's antlers (a post for another day - the difference between horns and antlers). Smooth sumac (Rhus glabra), has, as you guessed, smooth twigs.

Both produce small, crimson red seeds that grow together in dense upright clusters. These persist into winter and offer a bit of emergency food to robins, jays, crows, and other fruit-eaters. The smooth sumac clusters droop in the fall and appear more open and less fuzzy than the dense staghorn clusters. The two are shown below.

This native shrub or small tree that grows in full sun needs little care and has few pests. It spreads by root sprouts so some consider it a weedy woody plant. Yet, it offers a colorful green thicket in summer, turning a brilliant orange-red in the fall, and bedecked with its red jewels through fall and winter.

The Hares of March

This snowy March makes me think of hares. Alice's March Hare. The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Now if you haven't seen Wallace & Gromit, you won't know about The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. There is a key lesson about rabbits and hares in this story of rabbits terrorizing an English village by eating their prized vegetables. Wallace & Gromit use their BV (bunny vac) 6000 to suck up (humanely) all the bunnies (at 125 rmp - rabbits per minute) at Lady Tottington's estate. Unknowingly they also suck in a toupee belonging to Victor, the Lady's (uninvited) suitor.

Victor quietly but urgently tells Wallace that he wants ... "toupee." Wallace responds by noting that they take check or cash. Victor, a bit more hoarsely, repeats his plea, saying "my hair is in your machine." To which Wallace replies, "oh no, it's only rabbits in there. The hare I think you'll find is a much larger mammal." And there is the lesson, which brings me to the snowshoe hare.


The snowshoe hare is larger than the native New England cottontail and introduced Eastern cottontail. Their tracks are distinctly different as you can readily see in winter. These snowshore hare tracks show their large hind snowshoe feet that land in front of the front feet. Their front feet land staggered from each other.


The hare spends most of the winter under young dense white pine and hardwoods. They venture out to browse on nearby young hardwoods, neatly clipping twigs, buds, and bark of birch, aspen, and willow (deer, which lack upper incisors, leave a ragged tear to the twigs that they browse).

The snowshoe hare turns white in winter and then back to a soft brown. Cottontails remain brown year-round. Mating season gets underway soon, a time when the males and females do some jumping about and males can be aggressive toward each other, perhaps the irrational exuberance that led to the idea "mad as a March hare."

Woodland Mice

March came in like a lion in coastal New Hampshire. Let us hope the lamb takes us out at the end of the month. The one-foot snowfall on Monday prompted me to strap on my showshoes in search of fresh animal tracks.

Gray squirrel tracks lead to a big hole in the snow where it dug down to retrieve a cached acorn. Red squirrel tracks head for a low perch with spent cone scales cast about below.


A mink followed a small stream drainage, hunting in the zone between land and water.















The dainty tracks of the deermouse catch my eye. These tracks appear to be cast at full gallop, although it is hard to imagine the diminutive mouse, weighing in at one ounce, galloping across the snow. Deer mice tracks are easy to identify in winter as they show tiny feet - the larger hind feet landing in front with the long tail showing as a drag between the feet.

The "deermouse" is so named because its oversized eyes and bounding nature resemble a miniature deer. We have two woodland mice of the genus Peromyscus -- the deer mouse (P. maniculatus) and the white-footed mouse (P. leucopus). The two live in similar habitats and are hard to tell apart. Both are a soft brown or gray above and pure white below, and sport a long, bicolored tail.

These are the mice that sneak into our shed and into our lawn mower and snowblower. Last December our snowblower wasn't working well in the first snowstorm of the year. We took off the cover and discovered a huge mouse nest, with the mouse, no longer for this world, still inside. Hereafter we will clean all the yard equipment before first use.

Bulbuls of Pondicherry

The family of bulbuls has fledged. My sister- and nephew-in-law have watched over a nest of four red-vented bulbuls outside their flat in Pondicherry in southern India. They were worried that the noisy chicks would attract stray cats or that one of many snakes in the yard would find them. After the chicks hatched it seemed like just a few days before their feathers emerged and just as fast the nestlings grew so big to overwhelm their nest. Three of four young survived to leave the nest and fly to trees in the yard. The photo series follows.

Champlain Valley, the Banana Belt

I spent the weekend in Vermont's "banana belt," although it felt more like the arctic as a cold winter wind blew down the ridge overlooking Lake Champlain. Much of the year the Champlain valley is warm and dry compared to other parts of the state, a good climate and even better soils for farming.

I was in Charlotte, Vermont visiting my sister's family for my niece's birthday party and celebrating the move into their new home. They built an energy efficient home with one-foot walls filled with cellulose, a tulikivi masonry stove for heat, solar tubes for hot water, photovoltaic panels to generate electricity, and more features.
Their home is in the Champlain Valley Cohousing community, which is set on 125 acres of field and woods. The planned 12 independent houses and 14 townhouses are clustered around a central green on 10 acres; the remainder of the land is conserved for farming, trails, and wildlife habitat. Building lots are still available so new families interested in this community can check out the website.

Charlotte overlooks Lake Champlain and is home to some of the best remaining examples of clayplain forest, the forest that once dominated the Champlain Valley. Two of the best remnants of this plant community are found along Thorpe Brook, which flows through the cohousing community. To the north lies the town-owned Burns Woods at the headwaters of Thorpe Brook. To the south is Williams Woods, a natural area owned by The Nature Conservancy.

The cohousing is set on reverting farmland, but several large bur oaks, one of the tree species associated with clayplain forests, were left by previous owners and are prominant woodland features. The mother oak and the hollow tree are regularly visited by the families of this community. Eastern red cedar, gray birch, quaking aspen, oaks, white pine, and unfortunately buckthorn and other invasives have established themselves on the abandoned farmland. Some fields are kept open by grazing sheep, for the community farm and other gardening, and for Dawn the milk cow and Sawyer the alpaca.

Mt. Philo, Vermont's oldest state park, rises to nearly 1,000 feet a few miles to the southeast of the cohousing community. Blueberry, strawberry, and raspberry picking are within walking or biking distance.

At the Champlain Valley Cohousing kids laugh and play on the green or walk to each other's homes on the gravel walking paths that ring the green and homes. They skate on the pond and walk to the big oak trees or to the neighhboring berry farm. A nice place for kids and a chance for families to live in a community sharing common open spaces for growing food, protecting special areas such as Thorpe Brook, and generally getting outside to enjoy the woods and the views.

Back in coastal New Hampshire, far from any banana belt, we just cleared a foot of fresh snow from the driveway and pathways.

The Acrobats

March is nearly upon us and our resident birds are singing. The tufted titmouse is looking smart in its gray suit, short, stout bill, orange sides, and short, gray crest. The male is whistling loud and clear, Peer, Peer, Peer. Its cousin the black-capped chickadee is also whistling a clear tune, fee-bee-ee. Donald Kroodsma, professor of ornithology and author of The Singing Life of Birds, insists that the male chickadee is singing hey-sweetie, hey-sweetie. I like that.

The black-capped chickadees and tufted titmice roam about in bands in winter. Handfuls come to the feeders together. They are quick and acrobatic, their strong legs allow them to hang upside down even at the tip of a small twig. Their calls are similar, the titmouse sounds a bit more like it is complaining or scolding.

To quote Donald Kroodsma again, "It's all in the eyes." Seeing birds as they sing helps hear the details of their songs and makes it easier to identify birds later by song alone. Before the flush of warblers, thrushes, and other migrants, this is the time to learn the spring songs of our resident birds.