Nature Nerd

Among some of my friends, I have a reputation for being a bit of a nature nerd. In winter, I scan ski trails for animal tracks from the chairlift. I can’t travel a back road without peering at tree hollows and fields to see what animals might be hiding or foraging there. On walks through the woods, I’m easily distracted by wildflowers, weird lichen, and scat.

So it was a joy last week to wander a swath of forest with my colleagues from the nonprofit organization where I work, whose mission is, in part, to foster an understanding of and appreciation for the natural wonders of forests. It was a happy gathering of nature nerds – made even more so, perhaps, by the cool spring sunshine and because this was the first time we’d all been together in over a year.

As children, we have with an innate sense of curiosity about the world around us. Why is the sky blue? Where did that word come from? How do birds fly? What do worms eat? Why do stars sparkle? I remember being inundated by Whats and Whys and Hows when my kids were little. And then, at some point, that curiosity – at least for many of us – subsides as we become more occupied with school and jobs and sports and social activities.

For me, this curiosity waned for a while, but returned well into adulthood. I think it was sparked when my children started asking so many questions, inspiring me to seek at least some of the answers. My now teenaged and almost-teenaged children still ask questions, if not so frequently. But when it comes to the natural world, I’m the one who drives them nuts, asking questions and stopping to take photos of both familiar and unknown discoveries. No matter how many birds I learn to identify, how many wildflowers I can name, or how many intriguing animal habits I read about or observe, there is always so much more to learn.

Years ago, I attended a nature writing conference in northern Vermont, where I joined the early morning birding walks. I knew next to nothing about birds, couldn’t identify much more than a chickadee and a robin. One morning I was walking along a dirt road with the program director, Dave, when the guide pointed out some species I no longer recall. I said something like, “That little thing?” Dave chuckled and suggested I might try to seem a bit more impressed if I found myself near more serious birders.

Now, when I see a bird in the yard I can’t identify, I zoom in as far as my little camera will allow and snap a photo so I can compare it to my field guides and check the Cornell Lab’s incredible All About Birds website. If I’m still stuck, I send the photo to my Northern Woodlands colleague Dan, who will tell me if I’m guessing correctly or, if not, what important features I’ve missed on the path to bird ID.

Gradually, the number of birds I can identify – by sight or song – has grown, though I’m still no birding expert. (I think I will forever be befuddled by woodpeckers.)

Some of what I’ve learned – about birds and bugs and flowers and mammals and trees – is through personal observation and education. Other things I’ve picked up through researching some story or another that I’m writing. Much of it I’ve gleaned from reading and editing the work of writers who are introducing me – and many other readers – to aspects of the world around us I’d never known, or even thought to wonder about.

During our walk last week, we meandered among oak and ash and hemlock trees, past rock ledges where bobcats and porcupines and turkey vultures and many other creatures roam. We found myriad wildflowers scattered across the forest floor, tucked into crevices or growing tall through the leaf litter. Wood ducks took flight from a vernal pool as we neared, and we heard a yellow-bellied sapsucker rat-a-tat-tatting at a tree – and found lots of places where sapsuckers had tapped rows of perfect, tiny holes into bark.

On this walk, I was not the only one stopping and stooping to inspect scat or snap photographs of familiar flowers – or of unfamiliar ones to look up later. And often, when I had a question, someone else in our little posse knew the answer. It was a pleasant way to spend part of the day – fostering our own understanding of and appreciation for the natural world. 

Original content published by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul. This essay appears as Meghan's April 29, 2021 Close to Home column in the Littleton Record. 

Winter Woods Road

Just outside our front door, there’s an obscure labyrinth of paths that leads through the field and into the woods behind our house. These passageways are never so clearly traveled as during the winter months, when markings in the snow reveal the passings-by of critters large and small, human and non-human, often furred but sometimes feathered.

A happy pup on the Woods Road

As often as I can, when there is snow covering the ground, I head into the woods with the dog, who wiggles in full-bodied, happy anticipation of the smells she will sniff and the squirrels she might chase. Usually I travel by ski, but if the snow is deep and untracked, I wear my snowshoes. I may enter the woods from the edge of the road or the front yard, on the path just below our springhouse or at the back corner of the field.

However I get there, my main route is along what we call the Woods Road, a traverse built years ago through the forest by my husband’s grandfather. Because I have traveled this road in all seasons for many years – including when my children were tiny and, therefore, moved at a dawdling pace that allowed for more careful observation – I am familiar with the places where game trails intersect the old road, where the squirrels sometimes stash their winter cache of food, which trees the pileated woodpeckers favor in their search for tasty insects.

During the snowy season, the Woods Road becomes an open canvas, one shared by many travelers. Here and there, other paths enter the road from neighbors’ yards, and for a stretch, the road will be leveled by wide snowshoe treads, or marked for a ways by slender ski tracks. Sometimes I am the first one there after snowfall, leaving a trail for others to follow if they’d like, although the Woods Road is broad enough to accommodate more than one track.

Perhaps it’s because I can see more clearly what’s been sharing the road – if only in space, not time – but it seems there is more condensed travel along this route in winter. I like to think we human woods wanderers are helping the creatures who live in the wilder part of the neighborhood, packing out a trail so they may travel more easily during the hard winter months, finding food, evading would-be predators.

Once, a few winters ago, I was startled by a snowshoe hair who leapt across the trail in front of me. More often, I find the hares’ distinctive footprints hopscotched across the Woods Road. Also there are the split-heart-shaped tracks of deer, as well as prints from foxes (often), bobcats (more rare) and wild turkeys (by the flock).   

 

Game cam snap of resident porcupine

The porcupine trails are easy to spot; the needle-spiked critters seem to feel no need to hide their travels. If the snow is deep, a trough forms through it where the porcupines shuffle from den to

hemlock grove and back. If it is shallow, their pigeon-toed footprints show the way they have gone. They also leave the nipped tips of hemlock boughs along the ground and yellow birch trees with large patches of gnawed bark.

Where the wild ones go on either end of their Woods Road travels, I have little idea. Often, I look for tree hollows that may house barred owls or sleeping raccoons. I wonder where the deer bed down during the short winter days, until they come to our field in search of old, frozen apples. I imagine there are bears denned up somewhere not too far from our home.

The Woods Road leads down from our house to an old bridge over Bowen Brook, where in summer the thirsty dog pauses to drink, and children have been known to dip toes into cool water. From there, the dog and I follow the road around the bend toward the idle sugar house, up through a boggy area only easily passable when it is frozen and hard, and back toward home.

We come to the woods in all seasons, soaking in the quiet there. In spring, we revel in the unfurling of new leaves. In summer, we welcome the coolness of the shade. In autumn we find wonder at the vast colors of the trees. And in winter we look for glimpses of the forest’s secrets revealed along the Woods Road. 

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her blog, Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the February, 2019 issue of the Littleton Record.