By Gary Lee
Folks in the north country can unlock their doors and unload their guns now that the escapees have been caught. It was a long three weeks for the residents around the Dannemora Prison.
Here we are putting up with more rain and the lakes are more than full.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the water going over the overflow at the Stillwater Reservoir during June.
The Beaver River is certainly full of water as are all the impoundments downstream that it flows through.
My loons that live in some of those smaller lakes don’t know what to do with all that water.
Even the loons on smaller lakes are dealing with high water.
Most have added to their nests—some by more than a foot—to keep above the water.
When the water goes down they will be sitting high and dry on a little tower and exposed to the world.
They like to build in bushes to camouflage themselves but now they have open-air nests.
If you see some of these in your travels over the busy weekend give them some space.
Some loons are what I call good sitters while others slide off the nest if a boat or canoe comes anywhere near them.
Many of these loons have just started a second nest and it will be halfway through July before they bring off their chicks.
It takes 27 days after the second egg is laid for it to hatch.
There have been a few chicks hatching, but most loon pairs are on their second nest and they will not renest if they are flooded out this late in the season.
While checking for a loon nest on Francis Lake up by Number Four I saw the male of the pair had fishing line around his bill.
It hadn’t restricted his eating yet as it seems to be just around the upper bill.
The bogs there were covered with rose pegonias, and I saw where a round leaf sundew had caught a dragonfly.
This sundew has enough food for the whole summer. It’s amazing how the other leaves of the plant fold around the prey they catch and help eat it.
The bass fishermen in the Hamilton County Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs tournament today (6/28) on the lower Fulton Chain reported seeing a pair of loons with a chick on First Lake.
Some said the loons were doing better than they were.
Local Trevor Tormey and his partner Joe VanValkenburg took the lunker prize with a largemouth bass that weighed in at 5.69 pounds.
They also won for the total top weight of five fish at 14.77 pounds.
Another local, Jack Graham, and his partner Tony Sege caught two nice bass… a largemouth and a smallmouth.
Jack said it should have been a pike tournament as they were biting better than the bass.
They had to be dedicated fishermen to go out in that foul weather this morning that was only good for ducks.
Many wildflowers are enjoying the rain but some of mine, like the foxgloves, have bent over with the weight of the water.
I tied up my roses today and put a small trellis under my mallows that were flat on the ground. My yellow foxgloves are all in bloom.
The pink pond lily in the pond has several flowers on it and will continue to flower for over a month.
Some flowers with a lot of greenery are growing like weeds and may also need some stakes to hold them up when they bloom.
I got in the garden the other morning after I got clearance from my doctor to pick up more than ten pounds.
The roto tiller doesn’t weigh that much but wrestling around short corners might make it feel like more than that.
I dug up and replanted all the little foxgloves before I chopped up everything. I hope for some sunshine to get things going.
Last year some of the seeds I planted rotted in the ground.
If mine all come up, I’ll have enough green beans to share.
For the Birds shows up at VIEW… but that’s another story. See ya.