By Gary Lee
With the weather we’ve been having there hasn’t been much sap collected in this area…and it doesn’t look good for the next ten days either.
Some rain is predicted for Wednesday and Thursday and then more snow for the beginning of next week.
Temperatures are record high out west and we’re set under the Arctic air coming down from Canada.
Our snow and ice won’t be going anywhere with these temperatures.
The problem is, when it goes it may go all at the same time. With the ice on the rivers that will surely cause a problem for some of our neighbors downstream.
You can only catch so much water with the dam systems we have and the rest goes down the river.
And with the snow pack we have someone is going to get some extra water in the future.
The first day of spring came and went without much change. The next day I had five red-wing blackbirds arrive at the feeder and saw a flock of geese fly over Old Forge.
The channel to Old Forge Pond was open so they had some open water to land in, but further north they may have to eat snow for a while.
The redpolls are still hanging around the feeder so I’m still catching them for banding.
On Friday I caught 30 common redpolls and two hoary redpolls. The color on the males’ throats almost looks like they are bleeding when you take them out of the net.
The juvenile males are showing some color in the rump and neck feathers but nothing like the older males.
I’ve also taken some black capped chickadees that I had banded back to 2009.
Someone asked what their lifespan is, which can be determined through banding.
One bird caught in Minnesota was 11 years, 6 months in 2012 so it may be older by this time.
We had one at Crown Point that was eight years old but we didn’t catch it last year.
Up to that point we had caught it every year but one, so it definitely lived and nested on site.
Speaking of Crown Point, the banding station will open on International Migratory Bird Day, Saturday, May 9, and stays open until Sunday, May 24.
This will mark its 40th year, making it one of the longest running banding stations in the country.
The nets are up at daylight and go down at dark unless we are trying to catch an owl or a woodcock. Visitors are always welcome.
Birding around the site is always very good as we don’t catch all the birds that travel through the area.
The Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) were super on Tuesday night (March 17) but not too well publicized. I heard they could be seen around 4:30 a.m. but I didn’t get up to get any shots.
My daughter-in-law got some neat shots over Lake Ontario, north of Rochester.
I remember seeing it years ago on a summer evening when we were trying to free a loon caught up in fish line on Thirteenth Lake…so it’s not just a winter thing.
There were many other pictures posted on the internet with lots of greens, reds, yellows and oranges.
The spring edition of Adirondack Outdoors magazine is on the news stands with lots of information on fishing tips and locations, hunting spring gobblers and the Adirondack Railroad.
Many hiking or canoeing destinations are described by Sue Kiesel in her article, The Golden Hour of Photography. The shot of her with a camera mounted on the front of her canoe was taken by my trail camera at Helldiver Pond one morning last summer as she paddled by looking for the moose.
You can subscribe to the magazine on line at: Adirondackoutdoorsmagazine.com/Subscribe.
They finally got in a day of vintage snowmobile racing on the ice at Inlet on Saturday. There was a little snow and some rain during the event but those machines roared around the short, oval ice track.
I only got to see a couple races but there was no holding back when they put the pedal to the metal. If they hadn’t put the names on these vintage machines I probably wouldn’t have recognized them.
Lots of time and effort by volunteers went into making the track and holding it this long on wind-blown Fourth Lake. Except for an ambulance run to an accident in the Moose River Area that delayed the race for a short time, the event went off without a hitch.
Thinking about some warm sand underfoot…but that’s another story. See ya.