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A maple seedling (Acer sp.) putting on fall colors. Fall, Mine Falls Park.
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A wet, bedraggled bumblebee (Bombus sp.), rescued from drowning in the Mill Pond, crawls through the leaf litter to find the entrance to her burrow. She just might survive hibernation to start her hive all over again in the spring. Fall, Mine Falls Park
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Cloudscape in the late afternoon sunshine in fall. Fall, Mine Falls Park.
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Cloudscape in the late afternoon sunshine in fall. Fall, Mine Falls Park.
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Cloudscape in the late afternoon sunshine in fall. Fall, Mine Falls Park.
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Cloudscape in the late afternoon sunshine in fall. Fall, Mine Falls Park.
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Cloudscape in the late afternoon sunshine in fall. Fall, Mine Falls Park.
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A blanket of partridge berry (Mitchella repens) spread around an oak tree (Quercus sp.) and sprinkled with autumn leaves. Fall, Mine Falls Park.
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Partridge berry (Mitchella repens) and fallen oak leaves (Quercus sp.). Fall, Mine Falls Park.
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Leaf of a fern turning yellow in autumn. Fall, Mine Falls Park.
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A granite boulder covered with mosses and lichens, including an odd pinkish lichen. Summer, Webster Cliff Trail, Presidential Range, White Mountain National Forest
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A lichen-covered boulder is split neatly in to three segments, cracked along planes that were once the floor of the Iapetus Ocean. Spring, Arethusa Falls Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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Close-up of Arethusa Falls in spring thaw. Spring, Arethusa Falls Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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Close-up of Arethusa Falls in spring thaw. Spring, Arethusa Falls Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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At the base of Arethusa Falls, the outflow of Bemis Brook carves a channel through the rotting spring snow. Spring, Arethusa Falls Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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Mountain cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) barely rises above the mosses in the big meadow north of Crawford Notch. It has been green under the snow all winter long, like the mosses. Early spring, White Mountain National Forest
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Mats of mountain cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) and mosses are liberated by the melting snow. They will soon be overshadowed by taller herbaceous plants that will dominate the meadow north of Crawford Notch. Early spring, White Mountain National Forest
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Arethusa Falls locked in ice. Late winter, Arethusa Falls Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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Footprints of a red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus). This shallow impression in dusty snow on top of a hard crusty snow shows the details very clearly. Late winter, Arethusa Falls Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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Tracks of a red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) record the rodent's busy, energetic foraging. Notice that the tracks record the way the squirrel moves: He hops, rather than walks. The snow is littered with winter-fallen twigs and the empty husks of beech nuts (Fagus grandifolia). Late winter, Arethusa Falls Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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A twig and cone of a red spruce (Picea rubens) lies on the snow. In late winter, the snow is littered with cones, twigs, and needles of spruce and fir. They may have been cut by a squirrel who then forgot to collect them, or simply blown down by the wind. Late winter, Arethusa Falls Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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Many meadow flowers hold their seeds all winter, dropping them in the spring. I don't know the species of these. Late winter, White Mountain National Forest
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Many meadow flowers hold their seeds all winter, dropping them in the spring. I don't know the species of these. Late winter, White Mountain National Forest
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Granite boulder covered with various lichens and surrounded by snow. Late winter, Arethusa Falls Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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Granite boulder covered with various lichens and surrounded by snow. Late winter, Arethusa Falls Trail, Crawford Notch State Park Downloaded 20 Times.
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Granite boulder covered with various lichens. Late winter, Arethusa Falls Trail, Crawford Notch State Park Downloaded 26 Times.
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Orange-brown polypore fungus (family Polyporaceae), with a little bit of leafy ("foliose") green lichen, on the trunk of a dead tree. Winter, Mine Falls Park
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Moss, which remains green all winter and photosynthesizes any time there is enough light, pokes through the melting snow of late winter. Winter, Mine Falls Park
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Orange-brown polypore fungus (family Polyporaceae) and leafy ("foliose") green lichen on the trunk of a dead tree. Winter, Mine Falls Park
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Orange-brown polypore fungus (family Polyporaceae) and a dense blanket of green moss on the trunk of a dead tree. Winter, Mine Falls Park
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Orange-brown polypore fungus (family Polyporaceae), leafy ("foliose") green lichen, and a little dark green moss on the trunk of a dead tree. Winter, Mine Falls Park
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Leafy ("foliose") green lichen on the trunk of a dead tree. Winter, Mine Falls Park Downloaded 26 Times.
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Tracks of a red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus). You can see where the squirrel's tail brushed the snow as it hopped along. Winter, Bemis Brook Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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A mouse, either a white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) or a deer mouse (P. maniculatus), left its tracks in a thin dusting of new snow atop the older, crusted snow. You can tell the tracks of a mouse from those of a shrew because mice hop, but shrews walk. Winter, Bemis Brook Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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Bemis Brook peeks out from its winter sarcophagus of snow and ice. Winter, Bemis Brook Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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Ice slowly grows its way upstream to cover a hole in the winter covering of Bemis Brook. Winter, Bemis Brook Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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Gray granite ledge can still be seen on the bed of Bemis Brook through a hole in its five-foot-thick blanket of ice and snow. Winter, Bemis Brook Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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Gray granite ledge can still be seen on the bed of Bemis Brook through a hole in its five-foot-thick blanket of ice and snow. Winter, Bemis Brook Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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A leaf-like green lichen spreading on the trunk of a dead tree. Winter, Bemis Brook Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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Branches of a red spruce (Picea rubens) sapling overhang two seelings of red spruce peeking out from the snow. Winter, Bemis Brook Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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Myriad species of fungus and lichen coat a broken stump, and are themselves coated with snow. Winter, Bemis Brook Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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Lichen growing on a dead twig. Winter, Bemis Brook Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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A white birch (Betula papyrifera) with an injury in the process of healing. When the bark is cut, the tree first grows smooth, reddish bark like this, similar to the bark of a very young white birch. Later, this bark will become grayish and furrowed, almost like the bark of a maple. After many years, the bark will return to the usual chalky white. Winter, Bemis Brook Trail, Crawford Notch State Park
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Bare hardwoods, mostly white birch (Betula papyrifera) and some American beech (Fagus grandifolia) stand in stark contrast against the dark hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis) and the steely blue winter sky. Winter, Bemis Brook Trail, Crawford Notch State Park Downloaded 118 Times.
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Close-up of a dead hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) infested with a white polypore fungus. Winter, Mine Falls Park
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Close-up of a dead hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) infested with an orange fungus. Winter, Mine Falls Park
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Horizontal layers of rock have sagged over the eons into curved layers, but cracked under the strain in more recent geological time. Spring, Wapack Trail, Pack Monadnock Downloaded 214 Times.
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A single brown leaf in an oak (Quercus sp.) catches the cold sunshine of a winter afternoon. Winter, Mine Falls Park Downloaded 149 Times.
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A large bracket fungus of the family Polyporaceae on a rotten log, fall, Pack Monadnock Downloaded 141 Times.
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Frankenstein Cliff is lightly dusted with new-fallen snow, winter, Crawford Notch Downloaded 227 Times.
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Tracks of a shrew (probably a northern short-tailed shrew, Blarina brevicauda) lead to a perfectly circular tunnel in the snow. Winter, Crawford Notch State Park Downloaded 145 Times.
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Imprint of a fox's (Vulpes vulpes) body, where it bounded into the compacted trail, then back out again. You can see the round outline of the animal's chest, and light drag-marks where its feet brushed the snow as it jumped out. (The circular holes and drag-marks running parallel to the trail are from a hiker's walking poles.) Winter, Crawford Notch State Park Downloaded 192 Times.
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Tracks of a fox (Vulpes vulpes) making its way through the thicket beside the Ammonoosuc River. Winter, White Mountain National Forest Downloaded 144 Times.
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A tiny seedling maple (Acer sp.) holds onto its fall colors amid the brown litter of earlier fallen leaves. The laurel will remain green all winter. Fall, Mine Falls Park Downloaded 343 Times.
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Footprints of a muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus) in a thin dusting of snow atop the ice on the Mill Pond, late fall, Mine Falls Park Downloaded 151 Times.
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Tracks of a mink (Mustela vison) in the late-fall snow. You can see where the little carnivore loitered, possibly to investigate a scent or to leave its own scent-mark on a dead branch. Late fall, Mine Falls Park Downloaded 161 Times.
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Close-up of the base of the same pine tree growing in a crack in the boulder. Fall, Pack Monadnock Downloaded 123 Times.
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Oak leaves (Quercus sp.) locked in the ice until spring. Late fall, Mine Falls Park Downloaded 103 Times.
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Ice on the Mill Pond has taken on a pattern that looks almost like leaves. Late fall, Mine Falls Park Downloaded 441 Times.
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I count at least 30 annual growth rings in this 8-inch slice of red spruce (Picea rubens). Late fall, Arethusa Falls Trail, Crawford Notch State Park Downloaded 270 Times.
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I haven't counted very precisely, but there are clearly well over 100 annual growth rings in this 18-inch slice of red spruce (Picea rubens). Late fall, Arethusa Falls Trail, Crawford Notch State Park Downloaded 209 Times.
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Lightly falling snow glitters among the trees in the weak morning sunshine. Late fall, Arethusa Falls Trail, Crawford Notch State Park Downloaded 188 Times.
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Ice crystals rise through red mud. Fall, Pack Monadnock Downloaded 107 Times.
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Oak leaf (Quercus sp.) on a water-smoothed glacial erratic. Fall, Pack Monadnock Downloaded 362 Times.
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An abandoned hornet's nest. Fall, Pack Monadnock Downloaded 312 Times.
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This dripping wet monolith offers cool shade and dampness on a hot summer afternoon as you descend Frankenstein Cliff. Spring, Crawford Notch State Park Downloaded 1,859 Times.
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The same cliff is a hazard of falling icicles on a winter morning as the sun warms the night's ice. And the seep below is perilously slick with inches of solid ice. Late fall, Crawford Notch State Park Downloaded 211 Times.
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Close-up of bog vegetation on Mount Jackson includes red leaves of sundew (Drosera rotundifolia), summer, Presidential Range Downloaded 154 Times.
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Mixed undergrowth on the sunlit northern bank of Bemis Brook above Arethusa Falls, including stiff aster (Aster linariifolius), bunchberry (Cornus canadensis), wild sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis), hobblebush (Viburnum alnifolium), and numerous ferns and grasses, late summer, Crawford Notch Downloaded 148 Times.
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A little garden of ferns on a granite boulder, late summer, Presidential Range Downloaded 319 Times.
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A little garden of ferns on a granite boulder, late summer, Presidential Range Downloaded 288 Times.
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Bakeapple berries (Vaccinium macrocarpon). This is actually a wild cranberry, also called bear berry, and distinct from the bakeapple berry of Newfoundland (Rubus chamaemorus), also called cloud berry. But it tastes like a baked apple, complete with cinnamon. They grow in the bogs on the northern slope of Mount Jackson, and this was a banner year. Most years, I only find two or three ripe berries. Late summer, Presidential Range Downloaded 161 Times.
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Water spider (family Cybaeidae). The surface he's standing on is actually water with a dense growth of tiny duckweed (Lemna minor) floating on it. Summer, Mine Falls Park Downloaded 349 Times.
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Underside of a fern leaf, summer, Mine Falls Park Downloaded 134 Times.
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Patch of wood sorrel (Oxalis montana). This is the native North American type. The common wood sorrel on your lawn or in your city park is more likely O. europaea, an invasive form. Early summer, Crawford Notch Downloaded 169 Times.
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Layered rock cliff face, summer, Pack Monadnock Downloaded 263 Times.
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Various lichens and algae on a large granite outcrop, summer, Pack Monadnock Downloaded 335 Times.
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Footprint of a moose (Alces alces) in the middle of Arethusa Falls Trail, early spring, Crawford Notch Downloaded 122 Times.
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Mouse tracks in the snow, winter, Crawford Notch Downloaded 155 Times.
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Close-up of ferns and mosses, mid-spring, Crawford Notch Downloaded 143 Times.
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Moss, ground pine clubmoss (Lycopodium clavatum), lichen, and hemlock seedlings (Tsuga canadensis) on an undercut bank, late winter, Mine Falls Park Downloaded 131 Times.
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Ground-pine clubmoss (Lycopodium clavatum), late winter, Mine Falls Park Downloaded 113 Times.
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Can't identify the species, or even genus, of most fungus, but I know this is of the family Polyporaceae. This is the "wallpaper" of one of my virtual computers. Late winter, Mine Falls Park Downloaded 177 Times.
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Moss-covered roots, winter, Mine Falls Park Downloaded 113 Times.
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Lichen on red pine, winter, Mine Falls Park Downloaded 132 Times.
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Nearly-bare branches of oak against the steely sky, late fall, Mine Falls Park Downloaded 289 Times.
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