Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 334

A little frosty this morning at twenty-six as my Saw Whet Owl nets were all white this morning. It was just as frosty last night at midnight when I furled them up after catching four Owls and losing one that flew out as I was picking up. A couple of weeks ago when I first started, I heard from Mark Manske, the raptor guy who bands Saw Whets up by Paul Smith’s. He caught one of the Saw Whets that I had recaptured last year. This bird was first banded in Michigan in 2023. This little bird gets around traveling north to south each year. One of the owls that I banded last fall was recaptured in Pennsylvania about two weeks after I banded it here in October. Last night I caught one of the biggest Saw Whets that I have caught measured wing cord was 140 and weight 127 Grams making it a female for sure. Females are bigger than males like most of the predator birds out there. I did catch thirty-five last year, but I don’t think I will get that many this year unless I have some big nights like last year when I caught seven on three different nights. Mark has a group of helpers while he is banding, I’m just a one-man bander here. I have friends come over to watch me band as many have never seen or even heard the little Saw Whet Owls.

They have nested in this area several times and when they are feeding young you will hear them calling during the day as well as at night. Their little toot-toot call is very distinctive and that is used to call them while netting them when they are moving south in the fall. I picked up a juvenile over on the Uncas Road that came out of the nest early and it couldn’t fly. I took it to rehabber Nina Schoch who raised it until it could fly, and she released it.

Category five Hurricane Melissa is pounding Jamaica today and going to hit the eastern tip of Cuba tomorrow then veer out to sea giving the east coast of the United States rip currents and high tides as it travels north out in the Atlantic Ocean. Many ask why I report these storms well many of the folks in the north country own some of that ocean front property which may be affected by these storms even though they don’t come ashore. Many people are still recovering from the hurricanes that hit the west coast of Florida and several of the southern states after they came ashore.

Big Game season is open in the north country so if you are out and about just be aware and make yourself visible if you are just out hiking. Hunting incidents have been down in the last few years let us keep it that way.

The first year I was at the Limekiln Forest Ranger Station 1966 they had 10,000 special doe permits that they were selling right at the gates to the Moose River Area for two dollars each. Cars that first morning were three wide on the Limekiln Road trying to get in the Plains to hunt. I had over two thousand hunters in the area that day, now you hardly even know the season is open. Two people were wounded by other hunters, not seriously, and I had sixteen missing hunters that night to look for. I just went up and down the road blowing my siren and most of them came out of the woods. I only had one party of two that were found the next morning.

Speaking of the gates to the Moose River Area, the entrance cabin at the Cedar River Gate burned to the ground last weekend cause of the fire is unknown at this time. The other cabin which was going to be for a campsite caretaker in the area and sites up the Cedar River Flow which never happened is still there.

Rain is still needed to fill some wells before the ground freezes but that’s another story. See ya.

Photo above: Saw Whet Owl