Bull Moose sighting makes for one memorable outdoor experience It was a fairly sunny week with a few showers thrown in for good measure. We hit some coming home from Utica last Friday night.
It would rain for a couple of miles as hard as it could, then there would be dry road for a couple miles, then rain again.
The sun was just low enough and there were several rainbows, one right in the Moose River at the McKeever Bridge.
People were lining Main Street in Old Forge for the Classic Car Parade when we came through town. I don’t know if they got it in before the rains came.
It’s been an exciting week out in the wild woods with babies popping out everywhere and Orchids blooming-with more to come. That’s the way it is during spring time, you just don’t have enough hours in the day to catch it all.
The trees and shrubbery are putting out an over-abundance of leaves and flowers with all this rain and warm weather to feed them.
If all the blackberries and blueberries become fruit you may become sick of eating pies by the end of summer. But then again, maybe not.
The large Yellow Swallow-tailed Butterflies have been around by the hundreds and feeding on all the flowering trees and flowers.
I’ve had lots of reports of Snapping Turtles laying eggs in different places around the area. The eggs will hatch in 60 days. The Painted Turtles on the other hand are laid now and don’t hatch until next spring.
Soon after laying their eggs the Snapping Turtles are ready to breed for next year’s eggs. The females, with their heads above water, make a lot of grunting sounds to attract males. Breeding is a pretty rough ride for both parties.
I’ve had a lot of people ask about the purple boxes that are hanging in trees around the area. These are traps to catch Emerald Ash Borers to see if they have moved into our area. I haven’t heard if they have found any yet.
The beetles are from firewood that is brought into the area by people who are camping. It is illegal to move firewood over fifty miles from its origin.
I had several calls on Pitcher Plant flowers which seem to be everywhere close to bog mats of any kind.
At Ferd’s Bog there are thousands of blooms spread across the large bog to the right of the boardwalk.
Some have lost their sepals and their upright flower looks like a clock face. I saw some butterflies pollinating them the other day. I had never seen that before.
The flower looks like an upside down red globe on a foot-tall stem. The plants’ cupped leaves underneath the blooms are the bug catchers which feed the plant so it can survive.
If you look close on the bog mat you will also see little Sundew plants. They eat bugs too, and in a month or so they will put up a stem with tiny white flowers.
Most of the orchids are blooming right on schedule. I saw some small Purple Fringed Orchids the other day that had been washed over with the heavy rains. They probably won’t have flowers.
The Showy Ladyslippers in the bog at Remsen are doing well with a few yet to open up. The White Bog Orchids all seemed to be open when we were there today (6/19).
A few Grass Pinks have opened up with many more to come. The Rose Pegonias haven’t opened yet but will sometime this week. The ones we saw in Ferd’s Bog Friday were still sticking their heads straight up so they have a couple more weeks to go before they open.
My biggest treat of the week came while I was doing a Boreal Bird Survey for the Wildlife Conservation Society last Thursday morning in the Moose River Plains Area.
The mosquitoes were just about carrying me down the trail and I wasn’t hearing very many birds.
A little before 7 a.m. I walked out to the edge of Helldiver Pond for my second listening spot. The water was dead calm but some waves were coming from the far edge of the pond.
And there standing in the water and eating was a big Bull Moose.
I forgot about the birds for a half hour. I got my canoe and camera and had one of the neatest natural experiences of my life-and I’ve had a lot.
He let me get pretty close as he just kept sticking his head underwater eating the pond lilies.
I kept shooting while keeping the sun in his face. I could see his big brown eyes watching me as he ate but I just kept snapping. I wasn’t there for more than ten minutes before I backed off.
The moose got out of the pond but was back in the water before I got to shore. When I finished my survey around 9 a.m., I went back and he was still eating in the pond.
Another party camping in the area saw a cow and calf Moose walk across the Moose River Bridge that same morning. Neat!
Give the Loons some space, but that’s another story. See ya.
