Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 335

Just watching the birds out the window, those beech leaves are just falling one leaf at a time unlike the maples and birches which are a shower of leaves. The red oak out front is holding its own and I found one the other day that came from a nut I planted a couple of years ago. Several acorns that I stuck into the ground have become mature trees bearing nuts themselves.

Another thing I saw were the winter moths just flitting around the yard, seeming with no place to go but to find a mate and lay eggs somewhere for next year’s moths to come from. Last night when I was taking down the owl nets at eleven which were covered with a white frost those little moths were out there flying around. Many times, you will see them flitting around after there is snow cover and we did have that one morning this week.

I did get all the clocks changed even the one in my truck and my watch some even got new batteries. The grandfather clock can only be turned forward so that is a problem in the fall. I just take it down and take out the battery and put the battery back in when the right time comes around. It is back to chiming again and right on the hour rather than two minutes slow since spring. There are only ten different clocks in the house, I guess I always want people to be on time and that is not counting the computers and TVs.

I had an excited caller this morning as Terry Olsen, who lives up at Gray Lake, had it as she described it as a very big Moose walk right through her yard, with no pictures and she didn’t even know if it was cow or a bull, but it was a moose. She has deer in her yard all the time but never has a moose more common than not in the Adirondacks these days. If you have trail cameras out in the yard like I do, do you never know what might walk through in daylight and more often in the dark?

I called Star Livingstone down in Woodgate as Project Feeder Watch just started on November first and we always check with each other to see what interesting birds we might have at our feeders. I had some neat ones this week when a Brown Tree Creeper was at the suet cake and a Fox Sparrow was scratching in the leaves looking for more seeds. She had a Fox Sparrow also and a pair of Red Breasted Nuthatches. I did catch a Red Breasted Nuthatch that I banded two years ago on the same day. During the week I had a male Northern Cardinal a one-day wonder and on south he went. Then two days later I had a female Cardinal which I caught and banded, and she stuck around to make my count Saturday. Also, on Saturday I had an American Woodcock that I flushed while walking down to the pond.

I’m still catching Saw Whet Owls some pretty late at night but last night I put the nets up at seven and on my first check I had a bird. I contacted Debbie Haynes, and she said we will be right up. I e-mailed her the night before as I had one of those late-night birds and she said they were in bed. They did come right up with their daughter and son-in-law who are great birders. In my office I banded the little owl, measured a wing cord, and checked the wing feathers for aging, it was two years old. Then I weighed the bird in my empty water bottle. Using the weight and wing cord measurement you can sometimes determine the sex of the owl. This was an in between bird with those measurements so it goes as an unknown sex, it knows. A few photos were taken and then I released it out the window and the show was over.

My capture of the Common Loon in Boonville a month ago was put on the The Dodo.

Electric Workers Race To Help Beautiful Animal In ‘Life And Death’ Situation-The Dodo.

The white covering of the ground may be more common than not in the next few days but that’s another story. See ya.

Photo above: Me and the Saw Whet Owl by Debbie Haynes