Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 345

We got through the New Years weekend before the next January thaw came with rain on top of the snow which iced up most driveway and walks again. Then this week we have been getting snow in inches at a time where out in some western states they are getting it in feet at a time.

Several Loons have been rescued since most of the lakes have frozen over and some Loons lingered too long and got frozen in or tried to get to the ocean but fell short and landed in open fields and on frozen lakes. Some of these were seen, reported, and rescued. One was found in an open field up near the Bloomingdale Town Barn. It wing rowed in the deep snow unable to take flight making tracks all around the field. Alex Fiebel reported the downed juvenile Loon and he and his family helped Nina Schoch catch it in the field. It was banded, blood drawn, banded, and released in Lake Champlain. That will be a family experience to remember, great New Year’s present.

It was great x-country skiing just after Christmas, but this rain puts a crust on the snow that will sometimes hold you up and other times you might break through making it both fast at times and dangerous when you break through. This new snow will help with groomed trails but be aware of blowdowns as there have been high winds with every storm knocking down trees and debris on interior trails that aren’t groomed.

A flock of Turkeys have found my feeders, starting out as eight, but it was up to fourteen over the weekend and there was a pecking order soon established as to who was going to eat where. They eat the spent black oil seed shells as well as the full seeds that get knocked out of the feeders. It is a clean up operation as they scratch around in the snow. They fly if I go out using most of the energy they have gained at the feeders.

My flock of Evening Grosbeaks is still around eighty when I get a complete count and Blue Jays are well over twenty -five as I’ve banded over one hundred since the middle of December. I did have a few American Goldfinch show up over the weekend which haven’t been here for a month. Many other northern finches are showing up south of Canada but not in big numbers right in this area yet. I’m using over forty pounds of black oil seeds in five days and two Tractor Supply stores I went to were out. You can get fifty-pound bags at Bailey’s Mill in Boonville as well as whole corn and mixed seeds if you feed that to the birds.

The two big construction projects happening locally are the complete replacement of the earthen dam at Sixth Lake and the dam repairs at the outlet of the Fulton Chain on Old Forge Pond. With all this work and no thoughts of putting in any water powered electricity that I saw in the plans for the Middle Branch of the Moose River. The dam on Lake Algonquin in Wells on the East Branch of the Sacandaga River has been producing power for several years. As have all the dams on the Black River from Stillwater Reservoir downstream. If you are going to have a dam it might also produce more green power. When we can run a cable from reservoirs in Canada down under Lake Champlain, and down under the Hudson River to New York City, one or two producing turbines would surely work here.

Many places out west have no snow yet but that’s another story. See ya.

Photo above: Loon in field wing rowing by Alex Fiebel and family