Dave Anderson

Spring in New Hampshire is a double-edged sword. On one hand you have longer, warmer days —plants and trees are blooming! On the other hand, the pollen springtime trees produce can present an array of unpleasant seasonal symptoms.

Yet pollen is so incredibly important to our survival – we think we should give it the credit it deserves.

It’s an unmistakable sound. One that elicits memories, sights and scents of events long ago. It recalls the joy of youth, the possibility of a spring evening. But it can also incite insomnia and the blind rage that accompanies it.

For some, maple sugaring is a perennial ritual, painstakingly completed as we usher out the bitter wisps of winter, and embrace balmier, brighter days of early spring.

And whether you’re producing maple syrup with just a few buckets, or if you’ve expanded operations with a full-blown sugar shack … you know this much to be true:

1) Sugaring is an art

2) Sugaring is a science

3) And a great excuse to be outdoors, with family and friends.

About this time one year ago life in New Hampshire and across the world changed drastically.

In this week's Something Wild, we re-visit  musings from Dave Anderson in how to find solace in nature-- even during the most stressful of times. 

February in New Hampshire can be a bitter time, weather-wise.

In some places, layers of ice and snow still weigh heavily on conifer limbs, and on the souls of even the heartiest of New Englanders.

But at last, the days are noticeably longer. So take heart winter-weary friends. The first pulses of springtime arrive in the smallest of signs.

Here at Something Wild, we don’t have a problem with winter. Aside from the snow and the cold and the freezing rain…okay, maybe we have a couple issues. But we have sweaters and hot cocoa and Netflix. Trees, however, do not. As the snow piles up, you may see trees bent over with their crowns nearly touching the ground, leafless and haggard. They can’t escape or hide from the cold, so how do trees survive?

Each year, bird enthusiasts across North America eagerly await the Winter Finch Forecast. Published every fall since 1999, the Winter Finch Forecast predicts when and where, and even IF fan-favorite finches like Evening Grosbeaks and Common Redpolls will grace our backyard bird-feeders, or make an appearance on a brisk mid-winter hike.

Sometimes called a Marsh Hawk, the northern harrier is currently one the rarest birds of prey nesting in the Granite State.

Unlike many of our more common hawks, harriers shun the forest, opting instead to hunt in wide-open spaces like fields, brushy areas -- even in marshes.  And get this --they build their nests on the ground.   

Peculiar preferences indeed, and ones that have made it a challenge for them to survive here. 

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This time of year, you're likely to see cars and pickup trucks heading home on the highways with fresh-cut Christmas trees tied to roofs or in the truck beds.

Fraser firs, Korean firs, Balsam firs, and Spruce (ouch!)...

So today on  Something Wild we take a look at Christmas tree farms, and the important habitats they provide for New Hampshire wildlife.

By the time the cold weather months hit us,  three of New Hampshire’s eight species of bats have already migrated to warmer places in the South and Mid-Atlantic regions. 

The bat that DO overwinter in New Hampshire have relocated out of their preferred summer roosts in trees (and Dave's chimney), and into winter hibernacula like caves, mine shafts, and abandoned military  bunkers where the microclimate is just right.

Standing dead trees (often called snags) are common in our forests, and it’s hard to overstate just how vital a role they play in a healthy ecosystem. These gray ghosts provide food and shelter for a whole heap of forest critters; a total of 43 species of birds and mammals are specially adapted to nesting or denning inside tree cavities.

This episode of Something Wild was produced by Andrew Parrella:

The number of acorns a tree produces in a given year has to do with masting. Not mast like on tall ships, but mast as in masticate, or to chew and it refers to the fruit, seeds or nuts that trees produce and are in turn fodder for animals. Especially in New Hampshire, oak mast follows a boom or bust cycle, which means the amount of acorns varies from year to year. Over time, evolution has favored the oak trees that demonstrate this boom or bust cycle.

It's late August, and the leaves are already starting to change. And that flush of red you’re seeing likely comes from the red maple, also known as “swamp” or “soft maple”.

It's an adaptable tree renowned for signaling an impending autumn, and has even earned the dubious nickname: “Judas Tree” – for betraying these late summer days.  

This Something Wild segment was produced by the amazing Andrew Parrella.

You may be familiar with hoarders (not the TV show, but same idea).  In nature, a hoarder will hide food in one place.  Everything it gathers will be stored in a single tree or den.  But for some animals one food cache isn't enough.  We call them scatter hoarders.  

Producer's note: Because of the global pandemic, Dave Anderson was not able to record this piece in NHPR's studio.  Instead, he recorded through the microphone in his phone, while sitting in his Hyundai during a rain shower.

Because that's how he rolls.

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The past couple of weeks have been weird.

Daily life changed gradually, then all at once.  We now find ourselves at home practicing our best “social distancing” protocols.  Incredible technology allows us to stay connected, and that’s fantastic.

But it’s ok to put the phone down. It’s ok to turn down the news from time to time, and take a long walk outside in nature.  This week, I took my own advice.

Amidst the simple beauty of nature,  I draw one deep breath… and then another.

Expert wildlife tracker Susan Morse is A LOT of things:

A life-long naturalist…a Shakespearian scholar…an award winning photographer.

What she is not…is easy to get a hold of.  So with some persistence and a little luck, Something Wild's Dave Anderson and Chris Martin tracked Sue down a few weeks back, before her busy season kicked into high gear.

Which is right about now (late winter) as Sue leads dozens of programs across  New England and beyond—teaching everyday people about wildlife tracking and habitat monitoring techniques.

It’s stick season in New Hampshire; the leaves are gone, our landscape exposed; a white blanket covers everything you see. Our trees are dormant. Aren’t they? To look at them, it wouldn’t seem that trees aren’t doing much right now. But it turns out there’s more going on than meets the eye. The phenomenon of photosynthesis is well documented, we all know that plants use their leaves to convert sunlight into sugar, or carbohydrates. But that’s not the only place photosynthesis happens.

Dave "Superman" Anderson:  

Sitting in a tree stand in the icy pre-dawn darkness has become a cherished winter time ritual for me.

I wasn’t raised in a hunting family, yet I live on a tree farm with fruit trees, vegetable gardens, and a backyard maple sugarhouse. Seeing and tracking deer is common. They’re beautiful, graceful, sometimes pesky… and very tasty.

  When we think about the kinds of people making important contributions to science, we might imagine someone in a white lab coat, squinting into a microscope, or pouring over reams of computer data.

Truth is, good science can also be accomplished by everyday people-- citizen scientists-- volunteering in both large and small collaborations.  

Standing dead trees (often called snags) are common in our forests, and it’s hard to overstate just how vital a role they play in a healthy ecosystem. These gray ghosts provide food and shelter for a whole heap of forest critters; a total of 43 species of birds and mammals are specially adapted to nesting or denning inside tree cavities.

Autumn in New Hampshire is a wonderful time to watch and observe some easily recognizable stages of natural cycles: hawks migrating, leaves changing color…bears fattening up as they get ready to hibernate.

But while we tend to think of cycles as a circular, repeatable pattern, unfolding year after year-- we should note that there are varying degrees of “cyclical” activity that can be quite complicated.

The main reason for this?

A common theme on Something Wild is breeding. (Which is why we always sip our tea with our pinkies extended.) Seriously, though, we talk about the how, when and where because there are a lot of different reproductive strategies that have evolved in nature. Today we take a closer look at two such strategies through the lens of "how often": semelparity and iteroparity.

You may be familiar with hoarders (not the TV show, but same idea).  In nature, a hoarder will hide food in one place.  Everything it gathers will be stored in a single tree or den.  But for some animals one food cache isn't enough.  We call them scatter hoarders.

We know…we’ve been remiss, and it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room. Something Wild, as you know, is a chance to take a closer look at the wildlife, ecosystems and marvelous phenomena you can find in and around New Hampshire. But over the years there is one species in New Hampshire that we haven’t spent much time examining. A species, I think that has been conspicuous in its absence. Humans.

New Hampshire benefits from the presence of seven different turtle species. This week on Something Wild we’re taking a closer look at two of the most common species you can find all over the state: painted turtles and snapping turtles.

The specter of drought is often raised in these early days of summer. And for good reason, though water levels have returned to normal around the New Hampshire, state officials are still warning residents to remain cautious after last summer drought. And while we often fret about the health of our lawns and our gardens, Dave (from the Forest Society) wanted to address drought resistance among his favorite species, trees.

First Bitten is our periodic series at Something Wild where we study the people who study nature, and what set them on the path to do that. And this time around our two subjects under the microscope trace their love of nature back to their parents's nurture, specifically their fathers.  

Ron Davis grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Not a place known for for its lakes or streams or for vast expanses of wilderness; not a place you'd expect to find a future biologist. But that's where he started, "and because of the Second World War my love of nature became greatly enhanced."