Aside from my four years in college, northern New Hampshire has always been home. The Squam Lake Watershed is only just over an hour south of home and has been a place I’ve frequently visited in the past for sports games and hiking. Before starting my service term with LRCC, I would drive around Squam Lake on these trips and stare out the window in awe of the beauty. Now in the third month of my service term, where I get to live and have an office space on the lake, let me tell you, that feeling has yet to go away and I would be shocked if it ever did.
Being from NH, I am fairly familiar with all of the wildlife that lives within the watershed. Nowadays, I get to see more aquatic life than I ever have before. Skye, the other AmeriCorps member at Squam Lakes Conservation Society (SLCS), and I get to live in a cabin in Sandwich, also known as The Pluckery. As a part of the old Coolidge Tree Farm, the cabin got its name from being the former location in which the farm’s chickens were, well let’s say “processed”. We have a feeling that chickens still haunt the place, as my cat, Newt, is often seen staring off and focused on what is going on behind the walls. (Or maybe it is just the mice that have made The Pluckery walls home too.) Back to my point, The Pluckery is a very short walk to the lake, facing Sandwich Bay on one side and Otter Cove on the other. Every morning and evening, a quick walk to the water usually has me seeing herons, loons, and many ducks, along with gorgeous wildflowers and tasty blueberries on the walk there. Now as amazing as this has been, not all of my bird encounters while at SLCS have been overwhelmingly positive.
One of the many joys of monitoring and spending time on properties that have conservation easements is the potential for wildlife sightings and meeting members of the community. Several of the SLCS easement or fee owned properties contain trails that are open to the public to bird watch, get some exercise, spend time with friends, and many other activities that allow one to enjoy the outdoors.
First some more back story and then I promise to get back to the birds.
To help create a sense of community on these trails, notebooks are left for people to write down what they saw on the property, where they are from, what the weather is like that day, or anything else they would like to share!
On a sunny Saturday morning this summer, I followed the trail on Whitten Woods to replace one of these notebooks at the south peak. Along the way to the peak, I heard some rustling in the herbaceous plants, just on the edge of the trail. I didn’t think much of it until a ruffed grouse ran out into the middle of the trail and directly back into the woods. Not wanting to disturb the ruffed grouse, I froze, as it ran around the woods starting to call. I now know the sound of an angry (probably nesting) ruffed grouse, as the events that followed included the bird flying at me and me sprinting the remainder of the trail to the peak. Once getting to the peak, I placed the notebook on the picnic table, caught my breath and prepared myself for the hike back to the car, which with no doubt would be bringing me back, directly to the site of the nesting, angry ruffed grouse. So I'm at the top thinking to myself, what can I do to make noise on my way down? This way I won’t startle the ruffed grouse, I’ll swiftly walk by and I will make it back to my car, hopefully not charged at for a second time that day. Simple solution (so I thought), I call a friend, so I can be talking on the way down and the ruffed grouse will hear me approaching. Wrong. On my way down, the ruffed grouse and I spotted each other, and both started moving rather quickly. Me racing down the path and the ruffed grouse trailing behind. I did however, make it back to my car unharmed and laughed about the scenario that just played out.
Although I was laughing at this scenario, I will say I was rather jumpy for the next few days. Where movements by a chipmunk on the side of the trail had my heart racing and my body would start to enter panic mode. And “oh no, not another ruffed grouse”, is what was continuously crossing my mind.
Since this incident, I have had a second close interaction with a few ruffed grouse and have hiked the trail again, both being relatively positive experiences. Now, I look forward to more positive experiences with the many beautiful birds that inhabit the Squam Watershed.
Cat graduated from Allegheny College where she studied Environmental Science, with an emphasis on Geographic Information Science (GIS), and a double minor in Computer Science and Global Health Studies. Learn more about Cat here!