A new Ossipee Lake Alliance survey shows state spending to control milfoil almost doubled between 2012 and 2017, but was still less than one-third of the total cost. Lake communities and associations paid the rest.
Alliance Report
Country Ecology: Gray Jays
If you hike, chances are good that you’ve encountered a Gray Jay–a smart, impulsive, relatively tame bird that will approach looking for food crumbs from your snack or lunch. Gray Jays hide small caches of food throughout their territories in late summer and autumn so they’ll have a ready larder for winter. As such, they can survive cold winter conditions in which other birds can’t exist. But now, studies show unseasonably warm weather is threatening Gray Jays’ reproductive success.
The Smart Report: January 2018
After an autumn flood, December was snowy, windy and bitterly cold, with power outages and frost heaves galore. It’s the height of winter on the lake.
Lake Auld Lang Syne 2017
The Tale of Two Campgrounds, the boat thief who got away, and all the rest. Ossipee Lake 2017 in review.
Country Ecology: Chickadee Flock Behavior
David George Haskell wrote a superb article in the autumn issue of Northern Woodlands entitled “Song of the Balsam Fir,” and while he evolved eventually into that subject, he also ruminated about the chickadees he encounters every year. It is good environmental reporting, so I thought I would reproduce his writing about chickadees instead of discussing how intelligent balsam firs are.