I think the swamps are full after this week’s weather, so it can snow any time. A bear that was shot last Friday was already in its den…that’s an indication that winter is on its way.
A party of muzzle loader hunters were hunting over by Limekiln Lake. They went around a fallen tree root and a bear had made a den under the stump.
One of the guys saw the bear’s nose working around in the den. When they got closer, the female bear charged out from the den and quick shot.
With nothing but black hair in the hunter’s scope, he brought the bear down.
She had no cubs but was a beautiful furred 300 to 400 pound animal taken by Jim Field.
The hunting party said the work really began when they had to drag this big animal about a mile back to the lake where they could bring it across the rest of the way by boat.
The boat transport was the easiest part of the retrieval, they said.
I took a tooth from the bear so they didn’t have to send in a jaw to the DEC biologist for age identification.
A female that size is probably ten years old or older. They will know after a cross section of the tooth is aged during the winter.
This party of hunters bumped into some bear hunters on the leach field when they were on their way out.
It was the last day of muzzleloading with a rifle and a shotgun, and they were baiting bear.
These hunters told the group that DEC told them there was a problem bear in the campsite and that they could put out bait and get it. I don’t think a Conservation Officer would have bought that story.
We missed the eclipse of the moon a week ago and the eclipse of the sun this week because it was so cloudy.
I didn’t see any pictures of the partial solar eclipse that was seen much better in the western part of the country.
Even with all the wet weather this week the birds have been on the move south. If you drove along any highway this week I’m sure you saw birds flush from the roadside ditches into the bushes.
Most of them are sparrows and juncos but some are goldfinch and purple finch.
My feeder has been a beehive of activity. I ran out of bands for the little birds on Friday so I’m on hold until more arrive this week.
I banded over 100 juncos, several white throated and white crowned sparrows and one real nice bird that I don’t catch every year: a fox sparrow.
It’s a larger sparrow and takes a band that also fits on a hairy woodpecker.
I caught a few hairy and downy woodpeckers and both species of nuthatches. A flock of grackles showed up one day.
I caught two of them in the potter trap before they were wise to that trick; then I didn’t catch any more of them.
After all that action I spent a rainy day in the cellar mending nets. Bigger birds often put small holes in the mesh so they have to be sewed up.
If not, some of the smaller birds, such as chickadees, find the little holes and try to fly through them.
I tried for saw whet owls a couple nights this week. The first night the wind blew and a light rain was falling, so all I caught was beech leaves. Without a catch, I took down the nets after a couple hours.
Friday night was the only clear night—a mover for saw whets. I turned on the tape at 7:30 p.m. and I had an owl on the first check. Then, fifteen minutes later I had another.
On the next check I had four, then three. I had one on each check after that until I pulled the nets at 10:30 p.m.
I had a total of 11 birds, with one calling to me as I was taking down the nets. I had enough of the little guys—mostly gals, actually—by that time.
I didn’t get out after salmon this week, but I did get up the north end of Raquette Lake where the fish hatchery personnel were taking laketrout eggs.
They only had a couple more days to check trap nets as the spawn was just about over.
With them we only took three females and about 50 males so they only got about 800 eggs that day.
Neil McCarthy, who runs the Chateaugay Fish Hatchery was running the egg take. He said the take was down quite a bit from what they normally take.
It was good when they started, he said, then the warm weather turned the spawning off. Also, an otter got into one of the nets and killed some fish…all males.
A bald eagle was sitting in a tree over this net. He could see the dead fish in the net but couldn’t get at them.
The deer hunters are out and about…but that’s another story. See ya.