Wildlife

The Forest Society's mission includes conserving land that supports New Hampshire's native animals and plants, so that wildlife remains a part of our everyday world. Visit this page to explore stories, projects and stewardship related to wildlife and habitat.

Something Wild: What's Good For The Goose

November's gray skies carry the last of the migrating Canada geese, graceful ribbons of true wild Canadians on a long-distance flight. These aren't the New England locals, flying low from golf course to cornfield.

You know how New Hampshire likes to be first in the nation when it comes to politics? Well, it turns out we’re stragglers in another category: sandhill cranes. They’ve been nesting in our neighboring states of Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts, but they never went granite until this year.

Sometimes coyotes make such a commotion that the hair on the back of your neck snaps to attention—a hard-wired reaction we share with other mammals. So raucus is the noise that you imagine there must be a vast pack of coyotes, howling like a frenzied mob of ravenous Black Friday bargain-hunters waiting for Wal-Mart to open.

November is a great time to spot golden eagles. They are a rare sight in New Hampshire, but they do pass through the state on their annual migration. Right now they’re on their way south to winter in the central Appalachians.

Forget about spooky black cats, witches, ghosts and goblins; think about what happens to your pumpkin.

We love answering listener's questions and recently we received one that is a common query at both the Audubon and the Forest Society.

Why is it that some years there are tons of acorns and other years hardly any?

 

While hiking on Mount Monadnock this summer, I witnessed an odd phenomenon: nearly-motionless hovering insects with orange-yellow stripes over a dark body suggesting wasps or bees. The tight aerial formation of insects hovered at eye level in a shaft of sunlight over the trail.

You need no special excuse to seek cool water on a hot summer day. Water lilies provide a perfect mid-summer setting to explore the specialized role of aquatic plants in NH ponds and wetlands. Paddlers and shoreline hikers alike admire scented, floating flowers of water lilies blooming in July.

If Valentine's Day alone were not a slippery slope, consider this question: Muskrat Love?