by Gary Lee
Our weather has been what might be called normal for an Adiron-dack Fall with sunny days and frosty nights. It did get down to 14 one morning which froze up the bad bird bath.
I saved it because it was Karen’s Mother’s Day present and the birds liked it all summer.
Other places on earth didn’t fare as well as the most powerful hurricane ever recorded, Hurricane Patricia, hit the Mexican Coast at category 5.
The winds were over 200 miles an hour and luckily hit the coast where there were very few people and missed hitting any big cities directly.
The storm broke down quickly by the mountains there to a category 1 but the rains were very heavy as it crossed land.
The effects of this storm are still being felt all across the southern coast of the United States with 7 to 10 inches of heavy rains.
There was some loss of life but nothing like it would have been if it hit one of the bigger cities directly.
Still no climate change around our earth, but the sky is falling!
Then in Pakistan and Afghanistan there was an earthquake that was recorded as 7.5 on the Richter scale causing the deaths of 250 people so far.
This occurred deep in the earth which lessened the damage above ground but still there were a lot of building, road, electrical and communication problems.
From the looks of the film footage taken in the villages there the death toll will certainly rise.
The loss of wildlife in natural disasters–animals, birds, butterflies and other critters– is not measured for some time down the road when numbers are found down.
The monarch butterflies were certainly caught right in the middle of their migration which doesn’t say much for their problems.
The population locally picked up just a little this summer so now we will have to wait until next year to see if that continues or goes downhill more.
Many of the birds were also in their movements south right into this powerful storm.
For many of these birds it’s their first trip south and they may think twice about going again.
I’ve watched the robins all over big lawns in the area and eating all the mountain ash berries off the trees in Arrowhead Park.
There were twenty birds there one day and not many berries left the next day.
These birds eat the berries then poop out the seeds further down the road.
This is how many invasives get spread so quickly by the birds.
I’ve had a few robins working the smaller crab apple trees in the yard but haven’t gotten a good photo of them yet.
These robins have come down from Canada and they seem to be larger than our local birds.
I have yet to band any of them as they fly higher than the nets I have out.
I have caught a few more saw whet owls on nights when it isn’t raining or windy.
The deer have riddled my nets so bad the birds can fly right through in many places.
Be aware when you are out and about that it is hunting season. Wear something colorful, not black or brown like the color of the animals being hunted.
Hunters should always be sure to check their target with binoculars and not the scope on their gun.
Up here in the north country any deer hunted now has to be a buck so you have to know that before you shoot.
Once, a fella hunting over by Lake Durant shot two other hunters, a man and a woman, with one shot.
The man was killed and the woman wounded badly though they were both wearing hunter orange.
The hunter claimed he saw horns and fired. He was charged with criminally negligent homicide.
I’ve also had some hunters get so excited about shooting at a bear that they ejected all the shells out of their guns, never firing a shot.
One guy once told me that all he saw was black in his scope; that three bears were so close he must have hit them.
When we went back to the exact location where he was shooting from, there in the leaves were his five unfired bullets. He couldn’t believe he did that. He didn’t get the three bears, that’s for sure.
Karen is coming along getting a little better each day and she is taking rehab locally.
We thank you for all the well wishes and prayers as they seem to be working in her favor.
The knotweed with its large leaves is dead for the season.
Its seeds and underground roots will be just waiting for spring to come to start growing again… but that’s another story. See ya.