When you own a store, your perspective on what a “vacation” entails changes. For Jeannette and me, our summer vacation was a one-night camping trip to the White Mountains. (And after a week in Joisey, it was nice to escape people for a bit!)

We set up camp late Monday morning in a beautiful, small, quiet Forest Service campground not far from the Maine border in New Hampshire. We spent the afternoon hiking an 8-10 mile loop that followed a few creeks, passed over one (relatively speaking) small hill, and meandered through varying habitat. Do to heat and my bum knee, we weren’t about to summit Mt. Washington on this trip!

Our loop winded through mostly mixed deciduous/coniferous woodlands, with some riparian brush, and a few scrubby, recovering blowdowns. Species typical of this habitat were seen and heard in abundance, especially Black-throated Blue Warblers and Swainson’s Thrushes. Quite a few gorgeous Blackburnian Warblers were seen, and we often stopped to enjoy the intricate song of Winter Wrens. We encountered one family of Ruffed Grouse, and our dog, Sasha, completely fell for the hen’s distraction display, hook, line, and sinker!

We returned to the campground, and refreshed ourselves in a nearby swimming hole. Cedar Waxwings sallied for insects overhead, and more Swainson’s Thrushes echoed from the woods. As dusk fell at our camp, we fell asleep to the sounds of serenading Swainson’s Thrushes, interrupted by the occasional vocalizations of a pair of Barred Owls.

The morning chorus was suprisingly loud for this time of year, led by the thrushes and Red-eyed Vireos, along with a few Blackburnian, Black-throated Green, and Yellow-rumped Warblers.

After much stalling, and a bit of relaxed lolly-gagging, we decided to head down from the hill to spend the morning birding at Brownfield Bog, just south of Fryeburg. A stiff knee, muggy air, rising temperatures, and very threatening clouds confirmed our decision. Besides, we had not birded this great spot at all this year.

Our decision seemed like a good one, except birding at the Bog was a near complete failure! It was hot as heck, reducing bird activity, but the deer flies were just too much to take! Thanks to our favorite bug dope, they weren’t biting us, but the constant drone near our ears severely limited our ability to hear anything avian. Worse, however, were the deer flies for Sasha. She spent most of the time rolling in mud, running away from swarms of flies, or swatting at flies landing on her head with her paws (very cute and amusing at first), or snapping at the ones in front of her face (doing her best Tree Swallow imitation). Basically, our dog looked like Pigpen from the Peanuts – except the cloud following here were voracious flies, not JUST filth.

A few somewhat open sections of trail provided a bit of wind, and a bit of a respite from the flies (the thunderheads were really building over the mountains, so our decision to bird the bog wasn’t all bad), but we soon threw the towel in – mostly for our dog’s sake – and turned around. We did see one Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, one of the target species of a trip here, but we were really forced to be out for a brisk walk rather than a slow, birding mosey. So, unfortunately our trip did not end as well as it began, but it was still a great, albeit far-too-short, vacation!