New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff
Subtle changes this week.
Friday 10/30/2009
The quick pace of fall sliding by towards winter seems to have slowed dramatically. Most leaves are already gone and the temperatures have kind of hovered in the 40's and 50's this week though it they are expected to warm the next couple of days. Seems like our trip into winter has doodled a bit. Fine by me.
As I stared out my office window this morning at the Suncook River. It is quite full of water and very placid. My mind took me back a few years to before the three one hundred year floods starting in October of 2005.
Back then, and before, the river was pretty much always full as the Buck Street Dam in Allenstown backed the water up here some five or six feet deep along this stretch of river. One thing I notice this morning is all the old logs that once lay along the rivers edge are gone. I have since seen them down river in Bear Brook State Park high and dry over the river's bank and driven into the woods by the high flood waters. So the river from my view has lost the character it once had. Turtles and beavers and ducks and such would rest or sun themselves on those logs that were there for years. This sandy bottom river doesn't provide for much cover for fish but those old logs were a haven for life. They were all swept away by the floods and the river is at a loss for that cover. Plus now it seems like all the deep holes have been filled with sand. It just seems the river is more devoid of life than it ever was. The beavers that lived in a banking lodge within my view have gone too since the 2006 Mother's Day Flood.
I gave my Global Warming talk at the Lamprey River Watershed Association annual meeting last evening. Some 60 folks. It always energizes me to be in company of dedicated conservation minded folks like these. They so "get it" when I point out how in my 30 year career at Fish and Game I have witnessed changes in our environment due to climate change. I tell them that during my three decade career the average temperature climbed some two degrees here. I bore witness to the result of that over my career. From disappearing snow and ice to a shift in duck migration changes happened before my very eyes. And it doesn't take a biologist to see the changes. A NWF survey of NH hunters and fishermen found that they too have witnessed changes due to climate change. I told the crowd that the one thing they can do to make a difference is to call our Senators and ask them to support the Senate Energy bill. You can too: Call Gregg's office at 202-224-3324 and Shaheen's office at 202-224-2841.
