Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 356

I woke up this morning to the sounds of a thunderstorm as it rolled through with pouring rain on the roof. This, the last day of March, must mean that April can’t be far behind. When I was growing up April first also April Fool’s Day was the opening day of trout season. I loved to fish but if it came on a school day there was no skipping school for me. I had to catch the school bus just before seven to get to school by eight, so there was no time to fish before school, but I was on the stream soon after getting off the bus in the afternoon. Sometimes the first fell on a weekend and I would be on the stream bank at daylight catching brown trout in the Glowegee Creek or the Kayaderosseras Creek. One creek was a five- minute bike ride to the north and the other a two-minute ride to the south. Back in the day Denny’s Bait Shop in Ballston Spa had a fishing contest for the biggest trout catch that day. A couple of times when the opening day fell on the weekend I won the contest once with the biggest a nineteen-inch brown trout and another time I won with the biggest a fourteen- inch brook trout. I can remember catching both fish and right where I caught them. One prize was a small tackle box which I still have and the other was a fly rod, my first which I had for several years.

My mother was a trickster on April first, and I don’t know how many times she caught us with there is a Robin out on the lawn, which was her fun for the day. Well one day she made me a cheese sandwich for lunch as I was going over to the Kayaderosseras Creek where it crossed Lewis Road about a fifteen-minute bike ride away. The trout were biting and being a local kid I was catching more right off the bridge than the guys with waders and hip boots out in the creek. It came time for lunch, and I took out that cheese sandwich and the first bite I knew something was up. Opening the sandwich up there was a piece of paper between the cheese which said April Fool’s so Mother got me again and she wasn’t even there.

These storms coming through this week have winds blowing mostly from the south giving us warmer temperatures. The bird migration is in full swing if you look at the birds on the radar maps and they will be using those south winds to get here faster. I had a few new birds here over the weekend and many of my Evening Grosbeaks used those winds to head back to their boreal forest in Canada. As I went from one hundred twenty last week most every day to about thirty this morning. Many of those going north are wearing a shiny silver leg bird band. New bird this week was two male Purple Finch.

The heat this week also popped out my crocus and by the end of the week my daffodils will be blooming in the flower bed right by the house. My Virginia Bell flower showed buds coming through the earth yesterday.

Barred Owl calling during the daytime but that’s another Story. See ya.

Photo above: Crocus