Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 316
The hot weather finally got here, and it read eighty-eight on my truck temperature reading late yesterday afternoon and that is hot for this part of the country anytime of the year but not in June for sure. The thunderstorms rolled through here the other night showing red on the weather map and it did rumble a lot all around us. It rained hard for a few minutes but only recorded three quarters of an inch in the rain gauge. It watered the flowers which they needed and then the deer ate a few as it washed off my deer spray. They have eaten some that they had never touched before. One doe has a single fawn which has been in the yard many times and then another has twin fawns which I’ve only seen once. No bears around here yet. One bear was trapped by DEC in the Old Forge area and taken away as it broke into a camp and made a mess. They only must do this once and they are out of here.
The Loon world that I’m in hasn’t been good this week for me. I did have my first live chick with a pair on Saturday. It started off early in the week as the pair on Fifth Lake hatched their first chick after getting flooded out the last two years. The chick was killed by another Loon that came up from Fourth Lake. There was a fight out on the lake with the pair, but the chick was struck and killed in the action. The chick was found and recovered for testing as was the egg left in the nest that didn’t hatch. Then that same day checking on the pair in Sixth Lake I found that the pair had hatched out their chicks. I picked the egg sacs and eggshells from the nest and the pair came over to check me out. I saw bands on both birds, but they had no chicks. I followed them from a distance, and they had no chicks, they went all the way into Seventh Lake picking up another adult Loon just before they all went under the bridge. There was an adult Bald Eagle reported over the lake the day before from the nearby nesting site. They do catch baby ducks, geese, and loons to feed their growing young. They will catch some adult birds as well as fish. I counted eighty adult Mallard ducks on a lawn in Eagle Bay where they are safe from the Eagle, I guess. You don’t see too many ducks with young on the water and now you know why. I did see a Common Merganser with four young on the Cedar River Flow yesterday but my Loon pair there had the chicks hatch, but they were nowhere to be found on the Flow. The resident Bald Eagle was sitting on the rock ledge out in the middle of the Flow when I came back down yesterday.
Up on Beaver Lake by Number Four there is also a Bald Eagle nesting with two chicks, and the Canada Goose population has been going down each week. I saw one pair with four young goslings hiding in the cat tails. The Loon pair lost their nest in the first week the same as last year. I must assume that the Eagles chased them off the nest and took the eggs which they do. There are other predators out there, but when Eagles have a nest not far away why travel very far when food is just around the corner. Our observer on Nick’s Lake witnessed the Bald Eagles chasing the Loons off their nest and taking the eggs. I once saw this on the Cedar River Flow a couple of years ago, that time they took the chicks that had just hatched, but not out of the nest yet.
It sure has been very breezy out on the area lakes even during these hot days. These hot temperatures hatched out most of the blackflies which won’t last exceptionally long, now you must fight off the mosquitoes and deer flies.
Some old friends of mine were out in a bog and found and photographed a yellow pitcher plant in flower among many red ones. She had seen it two years ago and it was still yellow when she found it again this year. You just never know what you might see if you are out and about, thanks Angie.
There was a great party at the Stillwater Hotel and Restaurant which was celebrating one hundred years in operation on Saturday. Lots of tasty food, singers on the deck, storytelling in the pool room and nice weather to boot. Thanks Marian and Joe for a wonderful day.
Keep hydrated if you are out and about but that’s another story. See ya.
Photo above: Bald Eagle
