By Gary Lee
We’ve had so much water that I suppose whitewater rafters have caught up on what they missed earlier in the season. At times the Moose River must have been too dangerous to run.
I have to admit that I have never taken that trip by raft. I went down the Indian River into the Hudson many times and always had a good time. I still have a raft paddle that I found on one trip.
It’s amazing what I find along the roadsides. I only found a fanny pack with three dollars, a comb and a couple of granola bars during this spring’s litter pick up along the South Shore Road.
I figure it was lost during the bike race portion of the triathlon.
I found a kayak paddle in a ditch just past Utowana Lake while I was gathering seeds from some pretty purple columbine.
The Hornbeck canoe that I’ve been using all spring was found along the highway and never claimed. I’ve had that little canoe on over 25 bodies of water and have used that found paddle.
There have only been a couple of days that I haven’t been able to paddle because of rough water.
When I’ve been able to get out it has been fun. Just yesterday I went up the Cedar River Flow and was chased by blackflies.
The Flow was mirror-like which you don’t see very often. When it’s that calm it’s easy to see any loon from one end of the water to the other, and yesterday there were two.
I also found a new nesting pair. They had built a nest but had no eggs yet.
Another pair on Sprague Pond had nested in a spot I cleared for them the last time I was there.
I used an old nesting spot and just removed the debris and put down some moss.
There were two eggs in the nest that I checked so some have made it through the high waters caused by the heavy rains.
I just got a call that a chick had hatched on Little Long Lake yesterday (6/14).
Last year a pair of loons nested on White Lake and had a chick. That was the first time that had happened since I have been here.
I got another call today (6/15) that a pair of loons were building a nest along the shoreline of Fourth Lake.
This is probably a second nest as they lost their first nest when the lakes filled up with more than three feet of water.
I saw where some pairs tried to get above the rising water by adding to their nest. One pair on Twitchell Lake built their nest up over a foot but the eggs still went under.
I went into Mitchell Ponds on Thursday (6/11) and the mosquitoes and deer flies helped me pull the little canoe in.
Right in the campsite at the end of the trail were 17 pink lady slippers and several more along the path to the lake.
I paddled across the upper pond into the lower pond. There were a pair of loons on the upper pond.
One of them was banded…I haven’t figured that one out yet. I also found a single loon on the lower pond.
I checked the campsite on the point in the lower pond and there were 19 pink lady slippers in bloom.
Among them were some with just basil leaves and no flowers.
Just down the path I checked out a spot where downy plantain were growing a few years ago.
I found several plants that had flower stems but no flowers yet. There were many more pink lady slippers along the path to the lake there also.
It was kind of nice to find so many orchids growing in one place. Along the trail on my way in there is one pad leaf orchid growing which didn’t have a bloom this year.
I checked another spot over by Otter Brook that always has several pink lady slippers and there were over 50 in bloom. It was a photographer’s dream.
Later that day when I was checking for loons on Squaw Lake I remembered there were several pink lady slippers growing in that area that was burned over in 1966, the first year I was Forest Ranger here.
They must have liked the spot as many have continued to grow there.
Slow down a little on the South Shore Road…but that’s another story. See ya.