Date: 8/18/25 12:56 pm From: Ted Levin <tedlevin1966...> Subject: Re: [VTBIRD] 18 August 2025: Hurricane Hill (1,100 feet), WRJ
DeKay's snakes are very rare on this side of the Greens. Watersnakes are
non-existent. Mostly we have garter, milk, red-bellied, and ring-necked. I
haven't seen a smooth green snake in the Upper Valley in twenty-five years.
It's been very, very dry on Hurricane Hill this summer. The last rain of
any significance was early June (maybe earlier). Seeing just two garters
and no milks is surprising for me. Frogs have been low-key, too.
On Mon, Aug 18, 2025 at 3:02 PM Sue Wetmore <
<000006207b3956ac-dmarc-request...> wrote:
> Brandon has snakes, northern watersnake, DeKay’s brown snake and garter
> snakes.
> Sue Wetmore
>
> Sent from my iPod
>
> > On Aug 18, 2025, at 3:00 PM, Charlie Teske <cteske140...>
> wrote:
> >
> > I've heard others say they've seen no snakes this summer; any theories
> out there?
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, 18 Aug 2025 09:06:31 -0400, Ted Levin <tedlevin1966...>
> wrote:
> >
> > 5:38 a.m. (nineteen minutes before sunrise). Forty-six degrees (jacket
> on,
> > hands in pockets), wind North five miles per hour, gusting to twelve.
> Trees
> > moan and creak. An October morning in August ... a preview. Crescent moon
> > overhead, horns pointed west. In the East, Jupiter and Venus, the only
> > other bright spots in an otherwise clear sky, trail the moon, a great
> > celestial arc slowly dissolving into daylight.
> >
> > An altogether refreshing and indelible sunrise. Orange blooms across the
> > East, glazes the brooding hills of New Hampshire. One linear cloud below
> > the crown of Smarts Mountain. No oppressive humidity. No Canadian
> wildfire
> > smoke. The careless breath on the Arctic crosses Vermont. A passage into
> > autumn. A world awash in transition.
> >
> > Crickets and grasshoppers numbed to silence by the cold. Dragonfly
> > migration on hold. No bats this morning. No bees on the hummingbird
> > feeders. No hummingbirds, either.
> >
> > *DOR: *garter snake, a yearling, about a foot long. Only the second I've
> > seen all summer.
> >
> > *Drought Department: *lilac leaves, brittle and blackened. Gray birch
> > leaves, yellowing. The first maple leaves blush. Every morning, hose in
> > hand, I visit the raised beds and soak the strawberries. I haven't mowed
> > the side yard since mid-July. Newly minted wood frog, less than an inch
> > long, loiters in the flower bed, where it gets watered every morning.
> >
> > 5:46 a.m.: gray squirrel skips across Kings Highway. Doesn't look left or
> > right, mammal on a mission ... to my sunflower feeders. Great blue heron,
> > high over the hill, passing from one river to another, head on shoulders,
> > long wings, bowed, voice belches out of the folded pipe of a neck.
> >
> > A scattered flock of ravens above the treetops, fifteen plus. Birds
> forged
> > in the furnace of early morning: sunlight kindles black feathers, turns
> > undersides molten copper. Ravens crabby and conversive—dyspeptic rain
> falls
> > uncontested. Even chickadees remain silent.
> >
> > 6:25 a.m.: first red-eyed vireo sings, a hesitant rendition of an all
> > too familiar song. Longer than usual pauses between phrases. Soon,
> there'll
> > be no phrases, no daylight sonatas. No dueling vireos, voices filling
> every
> > space in the hardwoods.
> >
> > American goldfinches over a field of goldenrod, yellow above yellow.
> >
> > *Among the Other Birds: *blue jays harvest green acorns, managing to call
> > with mouths full. Black-capped chickadees and tufted titmice. Red and
> > white-breasted nuthatches. Dark-eyed juncos flitting everywhere—in the
> > woods; across the dirt road; up and down, branch to road ... eye-catching
> > tail feathers, bone white. American robins are calling, not singing.
> Purple
> > finch. Northern flicker, a disturbing laugh. Whispering black-and-white
> > warbler. Northern cardinal.
> >
> > 8:43 a.m.: Fifty-four degrees. Torpor over, ruby-throated hummingbird
> > visits feeder. Then, another and another, wavelet after wavelet. Half an
> > hour later, an upsurge of activity. Chaos at the feeder. The Gulf of
> Mexico
> > looms.
> >
>
