Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 338
On again off again winter weather with three new inches in my yard this morning which is pretty wet stuff. Rain is predicted for the day before Thanksgiving which will probably take this all away. They have opened Whiteface and Gore Mountains for the season. I know the temperatures are much colder at the higher elevations so they can make snow which they probably have been doing at McCauley also. I know some folks have skied the road to the top of Whiteface and back, I would be using an older pair of skies and any falls have got to hurt on pavement.
I’ve been trapping off the Twitchell Lake Road, and I would watch the temperature go down as I climbed up hill most of the way there go down each time sometimes more than ten degrees. It made ice in Twitchell Creek that I had to use an axe to break out my traps.
I did get the problem beavers flooding the Matts Snowmobile Trail bridge over Third Lake Creek. The trail there was snow covered every time but once as I walked in the mile and a quarter. Not much bird life along the trail a black capped Chickadee now and then, tagging along a White Breasted Nuthatch and big Pileated Woodpecker there every trip. Some Hairy Woodpeckers near the gate and others near the creek. There was a family of Ruffed Grouse feeding in the evergreens near the creek which I flushed nearly every trip there. They were feeding on the wintergreen berries, and they also eat the leaves of that plant. One day a family of Turkeys walked nearly a mile right down the trail. They must still be finding some fallen beechnuts in the open hardwoods there. When they run out of them, they will move into feeders.
Fifth Lake has been covered with Hooded Mergansers for the last couple weeks. One day I counted 82, one Bufflehead and six Mallards on the lake. It partially froze over which cut down in their numbers, but they are around somewhere.
I got reports of three Loons that came down in open areas not water and they were caught and released. One was reported frozen in, but I don’t think anyone would be going out on that skinny ice for that one. I’m sure it opened up again and that Loon got out, they can do that. Juveniles can get out of holes in the ice, but adults have a problem with that.
Many reports from family and friends about their blooming Christmas cactus and how many blooms they have. Just counted mine which has thirty-four out and several more buds to come, they must be Thanksgiving cactus this year.
My bird feeders have been busy, and I just counted 32 Evening Grosbeaks working on the feeders. I put up a new one, so they didn’t have to fight with the Blue Jays so much. They win most of those battles as their bites are bigger than the Jays.
Got a text with pictures of a Summer Tanager at a feeder out near Rochester in Ontario. A friend of my son Jason, Annemarie Scozzari was so excited, and she is a birder to have this bird which she didn’t know what it was. She consulted with her brother and together they figured out what it was as she got good photos. You never know these days what might show up at your feeder with storms to the west might push birds not normally seen here for us to enjoy. Bucks are still chasing the does but that’s another story. See ya.
Photo above: Summer Tanager by Annemarie Scozzari
