Yale Forest in Winter Part Two

Note: This is part two of a two part post. If you’d like to see part one you can scroll down to it.

If you walk long enough on the old abandoned road through Yale forest in Swanzey you’ll come to an open swampy area that was once home to beavers. Beavers will move into a place and eat all the trees and then move on. Their pond will eventually drain and new trees will start to grow, and they will move back again to repeat the cycle. I’ve read that it takes about thirty years to go once around the cycle and this area looks as if it’s in the beaver pond draining stage. Now trees need to grow so the beavers will come back. The above photo shows the old dam which isn’t really holding back any water now, judging by the force of the stream that runs through here.

The height of the embankment in the background of this photo shows that the beavers chose a natural bowl shaped area for their pond, but the grasses in the foreground show that the pond is now mostly dry.

This is another look at the dam. It was long but not real high; maybe 4 feet. I’ve seen them high enough to be taller than I am, holding back an incredible amount of water. The biggest beaver dam on record is one in Wood Buffalo National Park in Alberta, Canada that is 2,790 feet long and can be seen in satellite footage from Google Earth. Explorer Rob Mark was the first human to reach it in July of 2014. I hope I’m never near a beaver dam if it lets go.

There was plenty of evidence of beaver activity but it happened a while ago. This beaver stump is beginning to blacken, as were all the others I saw.

Tree cutters of a different kind were also in evidence. I don’t know why they left these logs there. The wood must have been sub-par in some way.

A couple of the logs showed signs of fungus infection. This one had signs of what looked like it might have been blue stain fungus (Ophiostoma,) which is usually transmitted by bark beetles. It is also called sap stain because it discolors the sapwood, along with any boards that are cut from it. This lowers the value of the log considerably; possibly enough so it wasn’t even worth the fuel it would take to truck it to the mill yard.

There was plenty of evidence of bark beetles on pine limbs. Not only do they transmit disease, if they chew one of their channels completely around a branch it will die from being girdled.

Another log had claw marks on it. They puzzled me because the snow was ice covered and too hard for an animal to have left prints. I’m guessing raccoon or maybe a bobcat; they were quite small, but bigger than a housecat would have left.

Clubmosses held their heads up above the snow. This one looked like Lycopodium obscurum, commonly called ground pine, even though it has nothing to do with pines. It is also called rare clubmoss though I don’t know why, because it is everywhere.

The evergreen ferns are showing great fortitude this year. When I see one this way it looks so delicate but the snow and ice surrounding it tell a story of unsuspected toughness. They’re very beautiful against the white snow and add so much to the winter landscape. I’m glad they’re so tough.

Even dead ferns add interest to the winter landscape. I like seeing their deep reddish brown color against the lighter tans of the grasses. It’s a simple thing that brings joy and puts a spring in my step.

Pixie cup lichens (Cladonia asahinae) poked up out of the hair cap moss like tiny golf tees. I was hoping they would be fruiting so I could show you how they reproduce, but not yet. They, like many lichens, produce spores in the winter but it must happen later on. I’m not very good at keeping track of such things.

Striped maple (Acer pensylvanicum) has striped bark but I’ve never seen it come with blue stripes and I can’t find any reference to blue stripes on line. They are usually a cream / white color but will eventually disappear as the tree ages. I took this photo to show how dark the reddish brown bark of striped maple is when compared with other trees, such as the one on the right. This maple often grows in the form of a shrub here and might reach 15 feet tall on a good day. Another name for it is whistle wood because whistles are easily carved from the wood of its branches.

I knew that the buds and young twigs of striped maple were often tomato red but I’ve never seen spots on a bud before. This isn’t a very sharp photo but at least you can see the spots.

It looked like someone had embroidered this brocade moss (Hypnum imponens) on the log it grew on, and that’s how it comes by its common name. It’s a shiny, feathery moss that forms large mats, usually on wood but sometimes on soil. I’m not sure what the small blue bits are. It must have been ice reflecting the blue of the sky. I didn’t see them in person so I’m surprised that the camera did.

I was expecting to see some turkey tail fungi (Trametes versicolor) but this turkey feather was a surprise. There is a story behind it, but it’s one I’ll never know.

I was also hoping to see some crystal clear ice but it had been snowed on and re-froze with a textured surface more like pebbled glass than crystal, but I could still make out the shapes and colors of the oak leaves under it.

The ice on the stream that used to feed the beaver pond was paper thin and wind sculpted. The animals are still having an easy of time finding water but are probably having a hard time getting around on the icy, crusted snow.

A few woodland pools were ice free. They reminded me of the forest walks I’ve taken on moonlit nights when the moonlight shimmers and swims in the dark water of pools like this one. It’s something I haven’t seen in a long time but I’ve had an itch to try night time photography, so it might happen when the moon is full enough to light the way.

Some journeys take you farther from where you come from, but closer to where you belong. ~Ron Franscell

Thanks for stopping in.

 

 

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Willard Pond

Last Saturday morning I was ready to go to 108 acre Willard Pond in Antrim, NH but frost coated my windshield. While the defroster did its work I took a photo of a cluster of frosty but colorful oak leaves on my lawn.

Before I turned on the defroster I also had to get a few photos of the frost on my windshield.

Finally I was on the road to Willard Pond, and what a colorful road it was.  I lived in Antrim years ago but I was too busy with running a gardening business then to enjoy the great riches that surrounded me. A recent post on the Park Explorer Blog reminded me of this place and coming here was almost like going home again. If you’d like to learn more about New Hampshire, especially about its parks and an occasional old forgotten cellar hole, you’d be doing yourself a favor by reading The Park Explorer.

Willard Pond is a wildlife sanctuary under the protection of the Audubon Society and it is unusual because of the loons that nest here. There are also bears, moose and deer living here, as well as many bird species, including bald eagles.

I didn’t see any loons but the rugged, unspoiled beauty that I did see was enough for me. The flaming hillside of beeches and oaks was just amazing.

In this place the hills come right down to the water so there is little flat, level ground to be found but there is a blazed, one person wide trail that I followed. I was glad I wore my hiking boots; this isn’t the place for sneakers.

Boardwalks helped navigate streams.

Huge boulders have broken away from the hillside and tumbled down, almost to the water in some places. Some were easily as big as delivery vans.

Witch hazels blossomed in great profusion all along the trail. I love seeing their ribbon like petals so late in the year and smelling their fresh, clean scent.

Benches are placed here and there for those who’d rather not sit on a boulder or tree stump.

This is one of the views you can see from the bench in the previous photo. The morning sun was just kissing the tops of the trees. Many were already bare.

If you turn 180 degrees you can also see this view from the bench. It’s hard to decide which is more beautiful, but being under these old oaks and beeches certainly made my spirits soar. Thornton Wilder once said “We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. “ I was conscious on this day, and felt extremely alive.

I always peek into hollow trees and I was glad I did this time because there was an unexpected surprise waiting.

Little brown mushrooms grew in the leaf litter that had gathered in the hollow of the tree. I take a tip from the mycologists and skip trying to identify little brown mushrooms because there are just too many of them that look alike. They lump them all together and call them LBMs, xo I will too.

There are many streams and rivulets running down the hillsides into the pond and mosses grow all along them. I saw many examples of the beautiful little bordered thyme moss (Mnium marginatum.) A translucent, sometimes reddish border encircles the tapering leaves, which have tiny teeth along their upper margins. Each small rosette of leaves seen here could have easily hidden behind a pea. I love how this moss seems to glow with its own inner light and though I passed it by several times it kept pulling at me, as if wanting to be admired. Finally it was, and very much so. It’s a beautiful little thing.

I’m fairly sure that this burnt looking area on a yellow birch was a chaga fungus (Inonotus obliquus.) It’s certainly not a burl and chaga is the only other thing I can think of that looks like burnt charcoal and grows on birch.  This fungus has been used medicinally in Russia, China, Korea and Japan for centuries, and it is said to be packed with vitamins and minerals. Recently it has shown promise in cancer research, reducing the size of tumors. In Siberia it is said to be the secret to long life.

I think that these marks on the cut end of this log were caused by bluestain, which is also called sapstain because of the way it stains the sapwood of logs. If this log were sawn into planks unsightly stains could show on the surface of one or more of them, and this lowers the price of the log. Both deep and surface bluestain can be caused by fungi called Ophiostoma minus and others, which all seem to be collectively called bluestain fungi and which can eventually kill the tree. It is thought that bark beetles and mites help it spread.

I couldn’t stop taking photos of the amazing trees. They were so beautiful and several times they enticed me off the trail for a better view so I could try to show you what being here was really like. Finally I realized that I had lost all sense of time and had no idea what time of day it was. Nothing that I’ve experienced can compare with total immersion in nature but it was Halloween and I had candy to hand out to the little ghosts and hobgoblins that would soon come knocking, so I had to climb back into myself and leave this wonderful place.

I don’t usually feel a need to name photos but when I saw this one I knew it had to be called serenity because more than anything else, that’s what I found here. I hope you’ll find it too.

Go in the direction of where your peace is coming from. ~C. Joybell C.

Thanks for coming by.

 

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