My husband and I are up in New Hampshire and Maine for about 10 days. It’s been an unbelievably long time since either of us have been up this way and it’s been wonderful to explore some new places and get to know some new plants and animals. I hiked along a few legs of the Cohos Trail, including up to and along the NH-Canada border to Fourth Connecticut Lake (the headwaters of the Connecticut River). This post is just a brief highlight of some of the fun finds from our first few days in the Pittsburg, NH area.
Pink earth lichen (Dibaeis baeomyces) – we have this lichen back on Cape Cod, but I’ve never seen it so “fruitful” as it was along the northern most leg of the Cohos trail. There’s an area up here called “Moose Alley” – I didn’t end up getting to see a moose face to face, but there were plenty of tracks and scat to indicate that they’re around somewhere. When I encountered this object, I was incredibly confused. There were many of them, seemingly at the tip of almost every branch of a shrub along the side of the trail. I assumed (wrongly) that it was the fruit/seed head of the shrub, but had a hard time rationalizing this with the fact that I was pretty sure the shrub was a willow (and willows don’t make fruit like this). It didn’t take long for iNaturalist to correct me: This is a gall produced by the will pinecone gall midge (Rabdophaga strobiloides).Bright blue fruits of blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) along the trail to TNC’s Hurlbert Swamp. Admittedly, this is not the best photo of a great blue heron, but it represents one of my favorite memories of our trip so far. I spent almost an hour along the shore of the Connecticut River within 5 to 15 feet of this bird – the closest I’ve ever been to a great blue heron. I got to watch it hunt, preen, and walk (rather than fly) across the swift moving current. Sometimes hanging out along the edge of a river while your husband fly fishes yields some pretty awesome nature encounters.
One thought on “Nature Notes from the North Woods – Part 1”
Annie, I’ve never made it up to Baxter State Park, but I hope to some day. That’s awesome that you were able to see a moose. We’re most of the way through our NH/ME trip at this point, so I might strike out in that department. But there’s been a lot of awesome plants, fungi, waterfalls and birds to keep me entertained. As for the pinecone gall midge – it was definitely not a common thing. I only noticed it on a single willow on one trail. But definitely a cool little construction.
One thought on “Nature Notes from the North Woods – Part 1”
Annie, I’ve never made it up to Baxter State Park, but I hope to some day. That’s awesome that you were able to see a moose. We’re most of the way through our NH/ME trip at this point, so I might strike out in that department. But there’s been a lot of awesome plants, fungi, waterfalls and birds to keep me entertained. As for the pinecone gall midge – it was definitely not a common thing. I only noticed it on a single willow on one trail. But definitely a cool little construction.
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