By Gary Lee
The terrorist shootings in France pretty much gripped radio and television broadcasts for a couple days, as it should have. Not a good outcome in either situation.
Anyone who says this couldn’t happen in this country is just fooling themselves.
When these folks just drive down the street and shoot a policeman or woman just because they are wearing a uniform something has gone wrong in this big world of ours.
The weather in this neck of the woods has been just plain cold with just enough snow to get the winter sports nuts out on the snowmobile and ski trails.
I’ve seen snowmobile tracks on most of the lakes. I wonder how many folks checked the ice first or just figured it was safe because someone else had already been on them.
Not more than a week ago water was still running in some places. It’s still on the move so the ice may not be safe in areas where creeks flow into lakes.
Even lakes, such as Limekiln, that were frozen for almost a month have very little ice on them.
When the thaw and rains came the lakes broke up and left many open cracks.
They froze just a little before the snow came, and believe me, ice doesn’t freeze very much under snow cover.
When I was ice fishing on Limekiln a week ago there wasn’t more than four inches of ice anywhere and where those cracks were open there wasn’t more than two inches.
We caught seven splake but nothing more than a foot long. One tip-up kept going up and I told my brother to get his jig stick going.
It was a hot perch hole and he pulled in about thirty perch in about an hour.
About an hour after we got on the ice three guys followed us out. They had read my article on fishing for splake in Limekiln in the new Adirondack Outdoors magazine and came all the way from Mayfield to fish.
They were still on the ice and hadn’t caught a splake by the time we packed up. I told them to go jig in the thirty holes we had as they would surely catch one before they went home.
I brought the fish home and took the eggs out for supper along with one of the splake. The bald eagles got what was left as I put the fish parts down on the dam.
Speaking of Bald Eagles, I got a few reports of sightings during count week.
One pair of adults that has been here for over a month now will probably nest in this area, if they haven’t already built one.
If anyone sees them carrying sticks or going to one location—normally a big pine tree—let me know.
There are only three pair of bald eagles nesting on the western side of the Adirondacks but that will surely increase as there is plenty of food over this way. The eagle numbers have been growing year to year.
My flock of redpolls stayed around this week. They finally found the sock of niger seed today, which kept them busy.
I had to raise my platform feeder as one doe stands on her hind feet to lick up the seeds.
Now I almost need a ladder to put seed in it.
The single white throated sparrow made it through the cold nights and is using the platform feeder, so he’s fat and happy.
I know it’s a male because I banded him and sexed him by his wing length.
If he makes it through the winter he will be first on territory next spring.
Ellie George sent me some pictures today of her walk on the old railroad bed in the Bloomingdale Bog between Paul Smith’s and Saranac Lake.
Someone has set up a feeder about a half mile in from the north end and several birds have found it for their winter food.
There is a flock of black capped chickadees and six gray jays, all of which will eat out of your hand.
She looked for a boreal chickadee but didn’t see or hear one.
She and her husband Cal got some neat pictures of these birds eating food out of their hands.
She said they liked raisins and peanuts. They had to shuck the peanuts for the jays while the chickadees took the whole peanut and shucked it themselves.
Sometimes the jays were hogs and took six raisins at one time, she said. Most of this was going to storage in the woods for leaner days.
The state duck count is this weekend, in open water of course…but that’s another story. See ya.