Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 385
Snow on Saturday morning and hard frost five days straight blacken most of my flowers and moved some birds to find food at the feeders as they move south. The Blue Jays are still working on the beech nuts in the trees all around Eight Acre Wood. Some must have fallen as the four local deer were pushing around in the leaves eating them off the ground. A small flock of White Throated Sparrows and one White Crowned Sparrow have been scratching around under the feeders for a few days. I haven’t caught a Saw Whet Owl yet and they should be on the move.
The last couple of clear nights with a half-moon in the sky has lots of songbirds on the move. I had a couple of fall warblers feeding in the trees along the driveway and both Ruby Crowned and Golden Crowned Kinglets flitting around in the spruce out back. Many times, the Golden Crowned Kinglets will stay around all winter hanging out with a flock of Chickadees. The Ruby Crowned Kinglets move south with most of the other birds. A Pileated Woodpecker has taken up winter residence in the big dead red maple along the driveway. It comes in about dark making a couple of calls and then disappears into the big hole it has made in that tree. They have nested on the property several times since we have lived here.
Beside the beech nuts the deer are eating anything green this time of the year. I took the wire off my cup plant, and they found that there was a snack bar eating the big leaves like they were a big mac.
I cleaned up my garden plots down behind the school and put the leftovers out on the pile out back. The local deer there had these cleaned up in one night and even ate the beans off the fence that I left outside the encloser. I found a couple of cucumbers that were hiding in the carrot patch, got a few more beans on the vines and several more cherry tomatoes that were still good and a tasty mouth full. The carrots and beets are still in the ground, and I will get them later this week.
The tamaracks are turning yellow and they will be off in less that a week and sooner if the wind blows or it rains on them. The four around my pond have been getting prettier each day.
Laurie Rankin, who runs the steward program for the fire towers, had a picnic for these volunteers at the park in Speculator on Sunday afternoon. There is a fire tower erected in the park and a nature trail that goes out behind the park down along the Sacandaga River outlet of Lake Pleasant. It was a nice pizza party with other snacks and Laurie gave out awards to stewards who gave up many days as tower stewards this year in towers around the state. A photo was taken in front of the tower of the group. I took a short walk on the nature trail and saw several bear berry shrubs covered with berries. I went down when they were developing this nature trail identifying things along the trail which are shown on signs along this trail. I did see a Raven flying over head and an American Bittern out off the look out over the river.
Hope to catch a few Saw Whet Owls this week but that’s another story. See ya.
Photo above: Bear Berry Shrub
