Who wouldn’t want to walk in the woods with Frank Baker? Here’s a man with a deep understanding of the natural world, a vast familiarity with the local area, and a joy in sharing his world with others.
In late February, Frank was scheduled to lead a snowshoe hike sponsored by the Sunapee-Ragged-Kearsarge Greenway Coalition — the second annual East Andover Bushwhack. Trouble was … the temperature was still below 0° at 9 AM when the hike was to begin. Would anybody show? That 14 hearty, smiling folks showed up proves that the word has spread. Clearly anybody with a sense of adventure wants to walk in the woods with Frank Baker!
The group headed south from Flaghole Road along a path Frank had tracked out a few days earlier, aiming for a marsh that he discovered years ago. Along the way, he pointed out tracks of coyotes, deer, moose, squirrels, and an otter slide along a brook.
In the mixed forest of oaks, beech, birch, pine, and hemlocks we saw shallow depressions in the deep snow where deer had slept and stripped bark low on saplings where one had marked his territory. Emerging onto the marsh through a stand of common reeds, we could see a snag in the distance with a heron’s nest balanced at the top.
A bonfire at the edge of the marsh provided warmth and an opportunity for more questions, conversations and, of course, s’mores. Andover hikers Linda McGrail and Susan Chase were pleased to learn about this new, nearby place to explore and expressed interest in finding ways for our community to plan more and communicate better about outdoor events. The SRKG appreciates Frank’s willingness to lead this hike and hopes he will agree to do it again next year.
The Thaw
According to the calendar, a year begins in January, but for a naturalist in New Hampshire, it begins now with the thaw. Warner resident David Carroll describes “the breaking forth of spring” as “the morning of the year” in his book, Following the Water: A Hydromancer’s Notebook. In this delightful work, equal parts art and science, Carroll takes us along as he wanders daily through his favorite wetland from early spring to late fall.
In prose that dazzles with its rich vocabulary and verges on poetry, he traces the seasonal arc of hibernation, migration, egg-laying, hatching, and the inevitable return of ice. His main interest is the spotted turtle, but along the way we meet snakes, sedges, frogs, deer, dragonflies, alders, otters, trout, mayflies, and fox.
Now — April — is the time to get outside, follow a stream, walk to a pond, look for a vernal pool, and begin noticing the natural world. As Carroll asks, “What is it to be alive on Earth and never come to know at least the place where one lives?”
Look up, and you might see returning robins, tree swallows, and yellow-rumped warblers as well as red maple flowers. Look down to spot marsh marigolds, early violets, polygala, and trailing arbutus. Spring cleaning in your yard means you will undoubtedly hear the first phoebes and, later in the day, a chorus of wood frogs and peepers calling from a nearby wetland. It’s time to bring in the bird feeders and hang the hummingbird feeders. When will the loons return to Highland and Bradley Lakes? Will great blue herons nest again at the Fenvale rookery? Find the answers to these and other questions as you participate in the arrival of spring.
Please share you nature sightings and interests with me at AndoverNaturally@nullgmail.com.