Except for the hail storm that hit some of this area last Thursday (5/22) we escaped some of the bad weather that crossed the country last week.
As I was driving back to Crown Point I kept hearing reports of 60 mph winds in southern Hamilton County and quarter-size hail, possible roads closed in northern Oneida and southern Lewis County.
I wondered what I might run into during my two-hour trip but the sun was shining all the way and there was no rain.
There was a Class 3 tornado out near Middleburg that crossed Route 88.
It hit several homes in that area and rolled over a few tractor trailers.
Not too many tornadoes occur in New York but with this wacky weather you just never know.
Several thunderstorms went to the north and south of the banding station on Saturday afternoon (5/24).
We had red-bellied woodpeckers calling every day but had not yet caught one.
We put an I-pad down by the net that was playing its call and in two minutes we had a beautiful male, only the second one caught at the station.
Just before dark we caught the edge of one storm but all we got was about half-inch of rain and not much wind.
The storm knocked down some new birds for our last day of banding though we only had the nets up until about nine that morning. We were going for a new catbird record, no matter what.
We ended up falling just short of 100, with 98 caught for the last bird of this year.
At seven that morning we got our 18th warbler, a Mourning, which we don’t get every year. This bird is about the last warbler species to travel north. We are normally closed before this bird gets on territory.
Just before closing down the nets on Thursday night (5/22) I saw one or two birds down in the main net lane. I went down to retrieve them and found a catbird and right beside it in the net was an alewife.
An alewife is an invasive fish species that has made waves in Lake Champlain.
There must have been a major temperature change in the lake’s water temperature which will cause a fish kill in this species as these fish were dead all over the shoreline of the lake.
Being a catbird, why wouldn’t they eat fish? Everything else was, including the turkey vultures, cormorants, eagles, foxes and a large flock of blue jays. That’s probably why we broke the catbird record.
Even though we saw a flock of over 60 jays fly over several times they never came to our feeders as they had more than enough fish to eat along the shoreline.
Isn’t it funny how creatures in nature take advantage of other things that are in abundance in nature?
The alewives are competing with the smelt and perch populations in Lake Champlain but the fishermen seem to think it’s the cormorants that are causing the game fish shortage.
The stomach contents of most of the cormorants that have been shot in DEC’s attempt to control them contain mostly alewives, not game fish.
The only reason there are so many cormorants and they are reproducing so many more young is that there is an unending supply of fish for them to eat.
The zebra mussels have cleaned up the water and made it easier for the cormorants to see and catch alewives.
DEC and some Vermont shooters were shooting cormorants on Wednesday and Friday in an effort to control them and in turn control the fish population.
Who’s going to win this? Only time will tell.
There were over 2,000 cormorants on the point before the shooting (by permit) started on Wednesday.
Over three hundred shots were recorded that day and about fifty on Friday, but the birds still seem to be winning this one.
A new bird, a sandhill crane, flew over the banding station on Wednesday. There is a pair that nests in Bristol, VT, which isn’t that far away across the lake.
For those who were there, it was a nice bird to see.
Another big bird that has come on strong with the clear water and fish populations is the osprey. There are many nests in the area and birds in the air every day.
There are also many bald eagles cruising the shoreline of the lake and flying over the banding station as they catch thermals off the lake.
Many days we saw three and four immature eagles flying overhead, which was neat to watch below the big puffy white clouds.
Get out and catch the wildflowers before they are shaded out by the forest, but that’s another story. See ya.