Close to 7,500 ducks tallied during New York State Duck Count
Ice along the shore looked about as cold as we felt that day.
A bit of cold weather has gripped us this week with temperature readings of –24, –22, –14, making the furnace run a little more or the woodpile go down to keep the house warm.
The price of fuel for both the house and car has risen again. Must be the Iranians have blocked the Straights of Hormuz and we weren’t told.
The oil companies get a kink in their shorts and up goes the price, then the price per barrel goes back down and the price stays up. I have never been able to figure that one out.
I did want to comment on Richard Risley’s ATV plans for the town trails. Some are already using these—mostly local kids running around back there.
Robin
Also, some ATVs from the private lands come out and travel on some of the trails around Independence Lake.
I’ve been on many of the areas in Lewis County where ATVs are allowed and they travel just as fast as the snowmobiles do on snow. They leave mud holes in their wake that just get wider and wider and deeper and deeper.
And they push up dirt berms on every corner that would take a bulldozer to put back in place.
This dirt doesn’t melt or groom like the snow. It just gets higher and higher. Just walk the Third Lake Ski Trail where new paths were made to get around the two feet deep mud holes.Some were caused by Jeeps, but this is what trails look like in most of the areas open to ATVs.
Maybe we should be publicizing the mountain biking or birding that has potential on these trails rather than ATVs.
The Duck Count for New York state was conducted all week but last weekend (1/14 & 1/15) we did Lake Champlain.
We had lingering snow and cold winds on Saturday with the temperature dropping all day.
Sunday started off at -7 with a 20 mile per hour wind hitting us right in our faces, which made it feel a lot colder.
The lake was open from the new bridge at Crown Point to the Canadian Border and it was full of ducks.
Three teams went out on Saturday looking through snow and fog coming off the warmer water of the lake.
Bill Krueger did Rouses Point to Plattsburgh, the team of Judy Heintz and John O’Connor did from Plattsburgh to Port Kent, and the other group of Ellie George, Malinda and Glen Chapman did from Ticonderoga to Camp Dudley.
On Sunday, Tom Barber and I did from Westport Boat Launch to Port Kent. There were rafts of 400 or 500 ducks in some places, and up to 800 in another place.
Due to the cold winds our eyes teared and the ducks looked blurry as we viewed them through the scope.
I knew there had to be some Barrow’s Goldeneyes among those large rafts of Common Goldeneyes, but in the wind, fog and waves I couldn’t pick them out.
The southern group took pictures and brought them home to look at on the computer to see just what they were looking at.
They had 147 Lesser Scaup which in the waves might look like female Goldeneyes.
However they could identify them from the pictures on-screen.
They identified a Ring-necked Duck from the pictures, one of two on the count, and also a solitary Common Loon.
I’m sure there were more out there in the wind, fog and waves but we didn’t see them.
Totals for the count were: Common Loon – 1, Horned Grebe- 13, Canada Geese – 166, Common Mergansers – 963, Hooded Mergansers – 15, Mallards – 1092, Black Ducks – 118, Common Goldeneye – 4866, Bufflehead- 105, Lesser Scaup – 147, and Ring-necked Duck – 2. That’s a total of 7,488 for the count.
While we are out there we also looked at other water birds and birds we see on the uplands along the lake shoreline.
Other birds recorded were: Bald Eagle – 3, Kingfisher – 4, Great Black-backed Gull – 24, Ring-billed and Herring Gulls, Horned Lark – 3, Bluebirds – 8, Bohemian Waxwings – 18, Robins-0ver 100, Common Flicker – 1, Cardinal – 4, Mourning Dove – 6, Tree Sparrow – 30, Slate-colored Juncos – 40, Red-tailed Hawk – 4, Rough – legged Hawk – 2, Coopers Hawk – 1, Turkey – 15, and a Carolina Wren at my brother’s feeder.
Tom and I also saw a Red Fox with mange and it was looking pretty bad.
On the way home a Gray Fox ran across the Northway. He was taking his chances, for sure.
The Great Backyard Bird Count is coming up, but that’s another story. See ya.
