By Gary Lee
Temperatures have been up and down this week from hot to cold, but no frost. I still see where some things were hit by the frost a couple weeks ago and still have not recovered.
Other plants just put up some new shoots like nothing happened.
We won’t know about the beechnut crop, which is important to many area animals and birds when they ripen.
The cherries seem to have escaped the kill.
The trees are loaded with flowers and are keeping the bees and hummers busy.
Many birds lost their nests in the four inches of rain we had.
The boardwalk at Ferd’s Bog looked more like a dock on a lake on Tuesday (June 2). We saw several birds, and the bugs weren’t too bad.
The temperature was in the forties when we were there so maybe they hadn’t thawed out yet.
Just as we got into the evergreens before the boardwalk we saw a male black-backed woodpecker which was a life bird for some folks.
We could hear an olive-sided flycatcher calling out over the bog mat. He continued to call the entire two hours we were there but we never did see him.
Normally they sit in the tallest tree and sing but this one just played hide and seek the whole time.
Now that a person can count a singing bird as much as a seen bird this was also a new bird for lots of folks.
We saw a pair of palm warblers feeding on the old flowers of the pitcher plants.
I’m sure they lost their nest as they nest right down in the sphagnum which surely would be under water.
We saw a swamp sparrow, common yellow throat, bluebirds, and a tree swallow, and heard an alder flycatcher and purple finch. I have a hike there on Friday (6/12); meet at 7 a.m.
Some of the bug eaters have lost their nests…some even lost their lives.
I checked some of my bluebird boxes and found dead adult swallows sitting on eggs.
They tried to stay on the eggs but didn’t get fed by their mate that may have also perished.
I cleaned out the boxes so that later arrivals could use them. The population of tree swallows is way down.
When I checked loon nests this week I only had two that made it through the high water: one on a platform and one on a bog.
I found a new nest on a bog mat after the water went back down so they will probably make it. Most of these birds will re-nest.
The pair on the grassy island on Twitchell Lake had one egg in the nest when I checked this morning.
When I checked last week they had added over a foot of material to their nest site in an effort to keep the eggs above water.
That failed, however, and they lost the nest.
Sometimes they will use the same nest site but most times they try a new spot because the other one failed them.
Last year we had one pair that nested four different times and lost every one. That takes a lot of energy.
On the orchid hike yesterday we saw lots of wildflowers in bloom and ferns putting out their spore shoots.
We went from Uncas Road to Bug Lake—which is the long way—but it goes right by some rare long-bracted orchids.
These orchids are also called frog orchids as the flowers are green and when in bloom they look like frog eyes.
The last time I photographed these plants was over 15 years ago when I biked into the spot.
The plants were only four- to 10-inches tall, and there were about as many plants now as there were back then.
They may grow a little more as they were about a week from blooming.
I only know of one more patch up the Otter Brook Trail in the Moose River Area.
These plants were found by Brian and Eileen Keelan when they conducted a plant study in the Plains over 15 years ago.
In their spare time, over a five-year period, they found 527 different plants.
They searched the ground every weekend the area was open, from Memorial Day to snow fall.
Brian had a collector’s permit and pressed almost every plant they found.
The 27 ferns he found are the most ferns found in one area in the state.
They also found 18 orchids. He shared much of his information with me.
He also turned over the collection and his records to the state museum.
One orchid they didn’t record however was the showy lady slipper.
The year after I retired I was birding in the area and I saw the same indicator plants that grow around where the showies grow in Remsen area.
I looked outside one of their plot areas and there was a showy. After an hour I had counted over 90 plants.
I will be leading a trip to the Remsen Bog on Father’s Day (June 21) to see the showies. In over 25 years I have never failed to see one.
Meet at VIEW, the arts center, to carpool at 9 a.m. or meet at 10 a.m. by Shuffelt’s Garage at the corner of Route 28 and 12.
Checking other orchids in the area… but that’s another story. See ya.