Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 234
Looks like we will finally be getting some snow. Tug Hill is getting more than their share being downwind from the big open Lake Ontario. Depending on which way the wind blows we could get a good shot of the white stuff. Just yesterday we had the ground white followed by rain at 28 degrees, making for a mess. That wet stuff doesn’t like to be blown or plowed. Luckily the driveway is frozen, so I don’t blow away some of the crushed stone along with the snow.
Over the weekend the town was full of people just about like the Fourth of July. The shops were full of buyers and the restaurants full of guests. The Inlet tree lighting went off without a hitch with JoAnn and Gordie Rudd doing the honors. I saw Gregg Rudd going into the Town Hall with a box full of the famous Rudd Santa Clause cookies. Looking at the crowd entering the hall they were not going to last very long. I can still remember my children getting those cookies at the Christmas get-togethers at the Firehall, now the library, and then at the new Town Hall.
The big thing in nature this week was the oil spill of over one million gallons of crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico. There was a break in the 67-mile pipeline from the Gulf to the coast and it hadn’t been located yet. This is a time when lots of the migrating water birds from the north go to the Gulf for their winter home. There are lots of shore birds that live along this coast year-round, and some are even nesting currently. Not too much is seen on the local news shows but if you look online the pictures of the wildlife affected are not good. Besides the birds, the sea turtles that must come up for air and seals, some with young covered with oil. Online this line carried one sixth of the oil production for the country so you can see how the oil companies will use this to increase the price you see at the pump and on heating oil.
At my feeders many of the birds have moved south. They make a day or two stop over for a snack and then move on during the next couple of nights. Just this week I had several Slate Colored Juncos, American Goldfinch, Pine Siskins and one Carolina Wren. They all seemed fat and happy and getting plenty to eat but without any wild food in the area they decided to head south. My friend and Master Bander Gordon Howard down in South Carolina said that the Robins had just arrived along with the Cedar Waxwings in his area. He still has leaves on his trees so he isn’t banding right now as he would be just catching falling leaves.
My son told me some stories of hunters using tree stands that should scare anyone. A lady customer came and told him her husband had fallen from his tree stand and that he was paralyzed for life from the fall. The stand was icy from the freezing rain, and he had no safety harness attached to him when he fell. Just two weeks earlier another relative had fallen from his tree stand and he had broken both legs from his fall. Last year falls from tree stands were more dangerous than accidents from guns in the hunting world. Anyone using a tree stand should have a static line from the stand to the ground that they are hooked into from the ground to the stand while climbing. Then when in the stand they need to be hooked from their body harness solidly to the tree in their stand. I’ve never been in a tree stand as I would probably fall asleep and fall out or get caught by my harness. So be careful out there and buckle up just like you do in your vehicle.
This is the last week of big game hunting in the Northern Zone, some sections are still open to muzzleloading, but that’s another story. See ya.
Photo above: Carolina Wren and Downy Woodpecker
