Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 326

We had a quick turn from summer to fall this week with morning temperatures in the lows in the thirties, forties, and highs only in the seventies a couple of days. We did get some showers and a couple of thunderstorms. The total rainfall I got was less than an inch and we could use a lot more. My pond is down about a foot, and it has been like that only once before at this time of the year. That year a migrating White Rumped Sandpiper spent a couple of days foraging around the shore of the pond. I haven’t seen one around yet this year, but it could still happen as they are on the move south. I saw one over on the LA Chute River between Lake George and Lake Champlain on Thursday.

That was one adventure this week, a paddle down the river from the park in Ticonderoga through the cattail marsh into Lake Champlain with my friend Ellie George. Many marsh birds’ nest there, and others are just passing through and stop to refuel on their way south. Nina Schoch joined us later rowing her guide boat. We were the first down the river that morning, so we got good looks at most of the birds that were there. Green Herons and Belted Kingfishers were both fishing along the shoreline, with Cardinals, Robins and Phoebes feeding in the bushes along the shoreline. The first big flush was of eight Great Egrets and a few Great Blue Herons. One young Great Blue Heron had his eye on a fish right beside us and it made a splash dive into the water and came up with a sunfish stabbed on his bill. He tossed it off and caught it in the air and it went down the throat. We saw a White Rumped Sandpiper and flushed a Wilson’s Snipe. Herring Gulls and a Caspian Tern called at us from the air. When we got out near the Lake there was an adult Bald Eagle perched on a stump and two juvenile eagles on a log not far away. They let us get remarkably close before taking flight. The two juveniles circled up and attached talons in a mock battle spun around and let go as Ellie was snapping photos, six hundred in all that day. There were maps and painted turtles on many of the logs, sunning themselves. As we came back down the main channel Ellie spotted two young Virginia Rails and as we watched a third one appeared, and little further down, we saw another coming out of the cattails to catch a snack along the shore. Flushed a Black Crowed Night Heron and we had a few Marsh Wrens chipping at us as they fed along in the cattails near us. We were watching closely for a Least Bittern as Ellie had seen them earlier in the week. Nina gave us a call on the cell phone that she was photographing one not far from us, so I paddled back up her way. That bird came out of the cattails and gave us a good show as it fed in and out of the cattails posing with its bill straight up many times looking much like the cattails it was standing in. We picked litter all the way back to the landing disturbing many turtles off their logs. A Green Heron put on a great show for us in some of the dead trees along the shore and then we saw a beautiful Northern Water Thrush bobbing his way along in the bushes. We ended up with a canoe full of trash from the river. A wonderful day with friends as this was a year to the day that Karen passed.

On Saturday night I went up Woodhull Mountain to light the tower. It rained until I got part way up and as I got near the top and lady caught up to me and we went up the tower together just as the sun was setting in the west. There was just a small streak of sky between the clouds that the sun passed through as it was going down what a sight as that ball of fire went down. It shined on the clouds above making them blood red. As we lit the tower four more folks joined us as we looked at Stillwater and Rondaxe Towers lights and all the windmill red lights by Lowville and down toward Herkimer. There was a fireworks display in Lowville which lit up the sky while I was reading the names of the seventeen observers who watched from this tower from 1911 to 1970 when the towers’ use was ended.

Old Forge Garden Club plant sale and the ninety-mile Canoe Classic both are happening this week but that’s another story. See ya.

Photo above: Least Bittern Juvenile by Ellie George