Dusted skipper and lupine in early summer
June 24, 2026
The open sandy areas near Concord hold a particular kind of stillness in early summer. The grasses stand thin, the soil between them pale and dry. Sundial lupine grows here in scattered patches, its spikes of blue-purple flowers just beginning to fade at the base while the upper florets still hold color. Look closely at those spikes and you may find something small moving: a dusted skipper, working the flowers or resting on a stem with wings half-open in the heat.The dusted skipper is a small, dark butterfly, the upper wings a deep brown with a faint dusting of gray scales near the body. It is a threatened species in New Hampshire, and its situation here is tied directly to sundial lupine, which is itself threatened across much of its northeastern range. The caterpillars of the dusted skipper feed on lupine and almost nothing else. A female will locate a lupine plant, lay a single egg, and the larva that hatches will construct a shelter by rolling a leaf and fastening it with silk. It feeds, molts, and eventually overwinters in that shelter at the base of the plant, pupating in late spring. The adult that emerges in early summer has only a few weeks to find a mate and start the cycle again before the window closes.This is the window right now. The lupine is in flower, which is when the adults are flying. That timing is not coincidental. The adult skippers do nectar on lupine, but they also use other open-area flowers nearby: spreading dogbane, common yarrow, annual fleabane. The frosted elfin, another threatened butterfly in this landscape, shares the same dependence on lupine for its caterpillars, and the two species can sometimes be found in the same patch. What limits both is the same thing: the lupine itself. Sundial lupine requires open, sunny, well-drained, sandy ground. It does not persist in shade or in dense grass. Across southern New Hampshire, that habitat has been compressed by development and by the natural succession of open land back into scrub and forest. What remains is patchy, and the populations of both butterflies are patchy to match.The sandy openings here are also under pressure from invasive plants. Smooth brome and autumn olive have both established in this area. Smooth brome is an invasive grass that forms dense sod, shading out lupine seedlings and filling the open ground the plant needs. Autumn olive, an invasive shrub, advances the succession of open areas toward dense cover. Neither species kills lupine outright, but both narrow the ground it can hold. The dusted skipper does not adapt to a different host plant. If the lupine goes from a site, the skipper goes with it.The grasshopper sparrow has been recorded in this area, and that tells you something about the structure of the habitat: open, grassy, with bare patches and low vegetation. It is the same structure that suits lupine. The two things are indicators of the same conditions, though they have nothing to do with each other directly. What they share is ground that has stayed open long enough for species with narrow requirements to establish.If you are standing near a lupine patch right now, watch the flowers for a minute. The dusted skipper is not a flashy insect. It holds low, moves quickly between stems, and perches with wings folded when it rests. The undersides of the wings are patterned in soft brown and cream, which makes it nearly invisible against a dry stem. You are more likely to notice it moving than sitting still. The flower spikes are tall enough to catch whatever breeze is crossing the opening, and in the heat of midday the whole patch shimmers faintly. That is the moment the skippers are most active, when the air is warm and the lupine is still in bloom.
Streamflow surged nearly 25-fold in two weeks, with the gauge jumping from a low of 157 cubic feet per second to 3,970 at peak—a gage height swing from 2.82 to 6.77 feet. The timing collided with mayfly emergence, when immature insects are most vulnerable to violent scouring. In a healthy watershed, such pulses are vital disturbance—renewal, migration cue, nutrient transport—but here the flood pulse simply moves the problem downstream.The water quality records tell the underlying story. Every assessed water body in the region is officially impaired—all 50 of them fail to meet their designated use standards. Only nine have made it onto the formal 303(d) list, meaning 41 are degraded enough to be tracked but not yet formally listed as polluted. The Merrimack at Garvins Falls Dam carries that formal 303(d) designation, a reminder that no volume of water washes away chemical or biological insult.A flood event in a truly functional stream renews the ecosystem; it scours filth, redistributes gravels, reconnects floodplains. Here, the disturbance merely amplifies an existing condition—moving contamination faster and farther, leaving behind the same degraded baseline.
Chimney swifts hunting the insect rise
June 5, 2026
Above Concord's neighborhoods and wetlands, the air fills with the chittering calls of chimney swifts. These sickle-winged birds slice through the early summer sky in erratic arcs, their mouths open wide as they collect the season's bounty. The longest days of the year have arrived, and with them, the emergence of countless aquatic insects from streams, ponds, and marshes throughout the region.Chimney swifts never land except to nest and roost. They feed, drink, and even mate on the wing. Their entire lives unfold in three dimensions above us. In early summer, these aerial hunters face their greatest challenge: feeding nestlings tucked inside chimneys and other vertical structures around town. The young birds demand constant provisioning, and parent swifts respond by hunting almost continuously from dawn until dusk.The timing aligns perfectly with one of nature's most reliable food pulses. Mayflies, caddisflies, and other aquatic insects spend months or even years developing underwater as larvae. When water temperatures warm and daylight peaks, they emerge en masse over just a few days or weeks. The insects crawl from streams and ponds, shed their nymphal skins, and take to the air for their brief adult lives. Some mayflies live only hours as winged adults, just long enough to mate and lay eggs. For chimney swifts, this emergence represents a concentrated feast. The birds gather wherever the insects rise thickest. Over the Merrimack River and smaller waterways, swifts wheel and dive through clouds of newly emerged insects. Their gular pouches, expandable throat sacs, allow them to collect dozens of small insects during a single hunting flight before returning to feed their young.The swifts hunt in layers. Some skim low over water surfaces where insects first take wing. Others patrol the middle air where thermal currents carry the insects higher. The highest fliers intercept insects that have dispersed widely from their emergence sites. This vertical partitioning means swifts can exploit the insect emergence at multiple elevations simultaneously. Parent birds make dozens of feeding trips each day. They compress their catch into a compact ball held in their throat pouch, delivering protein-rich meals to nestlings that will double their weight in just weeks. The young swifts must grow quickly. By late summer, they will join the adults in their remarkable migration to South America, spending the winter months in perpetual flight above the Amazon basin.But for now, in these longest days, the focus narrows to the immediate demands of raising young. The adult swifts trace their hunting patterns against the evening sky, their calls echoing off buildings and trees. Each erratic flight path follows the invisible highways of rising insects, the ancient choreography of predator and prey played out in the air above Concord. Listen for their chittering calls overhead, sharp and insistent against the softer sounds of evening.
