By Gary Lee
They still haven’t found all the bodies that were lost in the Texas floods. Forty were reported dead and several more are missing.
Yet in India where they had record heat, over 6,000 have died and not much of that has even hit the headlines.
The question is: What are we doing to our world?
The hurricane season just started and there has already been one.
Forecasters say there won’t be many this season, however, with the way the weather patterns have been going we had better keep track and be prepared.
The recent rains have helped raise the water levels in the Fulton Chain and Stillwater Reservoir. I had over three inches of rain recorded here.
Maybe it was a good thing the lakes were lower so they could catch most of the runoff from these rains and prevent flooding that may have occurred downstream.
Not only was the Fulton Chain low but also many of the inland lakes and ponds.
With all this rain some of the nesting loons will certainly lose their nests. Many had already nested and some of these lakes came up over a foot.
If they weren’t on a floating bog their nests may have gone under.
I had already lost one on Twitchell Lake from an earlier storm which raised that lake up a foot or more.
These birds should re-nest and in a better spot.
While putting up loon signs and line collection tubes at the Fourth Lake Boat Launch a fishing party came in. I asked them if the fish were biting.
Jim Makey and his friend were happy to report that they were and they had an eight- and ten-pound lake trout to show me.
He said they had a big one on their lines when it was only in the water a minute, but the big fish broke their line and got away.
The bigger laker took most of the line off his reel. They had to chase it with the boat a couple of times before it tired out as they were fishing for rainbows and only using ten-pound line.
The water in Ferd’s Bog came up over a foot. The plastic walkway was more like a floating dock this morning (6/2).
Many of the nesting birds that get right down in the bog mat to nest surely lost their nests, as well as some ducks.
I have seen a goose with two young but no young ducks yet.
I’ve seen several pretty pink lady slippers in my travels and found a few others that got toasted from the frost about a week ago.
Several people reported snow on the ground that morning.
I think it was the coldest up by Beaver Lake by Number Four as the knotweed and many of the ferns all turned black and brown.
Some tree leaves on the young beeches were also killed.
The Blackfly Challenge is coming up and the flies should be ready. They have had their snowshoes on for over a week now and they will be ready to eat come race time.
The race starts in Indian Lake this year and ends in Inlet.
I’ve heard there are over 500 entered so far. Let us hope for a dry day as those bikes don’t like to travel in wet sand across the Moose River Plains.
The Inlet Information Office has been looking for some volunteers during and after the race on the Inlet end.
If you are interested contact the office at (315) 357-5501.
On the Sunday of Memorial Weekend, Ted Hicks, a bird bander with a hummingbird license, and I went up to Stillwater to band hummers.
We had the birds to ourselves for about a half an hour and caught quite a few.
A few folks showed up to watch and hold a hummer.
We ended up with 47 new birds in a couple hours and four retraps from last year.
We caught many more males than females so maybe the females haven’t arrived yet…or they were already on a nest.
Several people got to hold one of the little hummers upon release.
Plants still recovering from the frost…but that’s another story. See ya.