Icy Amusements

Ho hum.  A winter without any snow can be really boring.  No skiing or sledding or snowshoeing or following animal tracks in the woods.  But lucky for me, I am easily amused.  And even luckier for me, I not only have the wonderful Moreau Lake to explore in every weather, I also have a congenial pal named Sue to enjoy exploring it with me.  We met for a walk at the lake this morning and were delighted to see the water completely frozen over.  Not thickly enough to cross as yet, but perfect for ambling along on close to shore, where we could see straight down to the lake bottom under crystal-clear ice.  Here's a view of the lake from the new deck of a cabin that hangs right over the water.  Over the ice, today.  (Lucky the campers who rent this cabin next summer!)

Here's Sue trying to take a video of the hundreds of minnows that clustered close to shore, exploding away at our footfalls above them, faster than we could capture a photo of them.

I loved looking down through the ice at the many-colored stones, their beauty intensified by the crystalline water.

A frozen lake presents many puzzles, such as what caused these bulges of clear ice to form around the base of plant stalks?

Or what caused these jagged patterns of frosted and clear on the surface of the ice? 

Here was an interesting patch of clear dark circles polka-dotting an area of white opaque ice.

The pattern above is just the reverse of what we expect to see.  Usually, ice bubbles are opaque white  as they stack up in layers within the dark clear ice .  We found lots of bubbles like that, each one prettier than the last.

Here was a distinct trail of bubbles that formed as a creature swam under the ice.  And what could that creature be?

Most likely the creature that takes shelter under this heap of sticks and leaves, a muskrat lodge.

Aha!  More evidence that a muskrat has been about, dragging its skinny tail through the slushy ice before it froze hard.

And here is the muskrat in the flesh, resting under the boat dock near the beach.  Of course, it dived into the open water before I could get a closer shot.

At this point, we were more than half-way around the lake, but we had to hurry on so that Sue could get to work on time.  We'd spent a long time dallying on the bridge between the lake and the back bay, marveling at the howls and pings and cracks and groans that lake ice makes as it freezes, sounding like a battle out of Star Wars.  As I said before, we are easily amused.

We Were Strollin' Along . . .

 . . . On a moonlit lake, and what a marvelous night for a moonwalk it was.  Moreau Lake State Park offers  full-moon hikes every month, and there are plenty of months when no moon can be seen, but tonight that silvery orb was in her glory.  The sky cleared just in time for her to light our path through the woods and around the lake.

There were about 30 of us (including a number of children and dogs) making our way along moon-dappled trails where we hardly needed any flashlight to show the way, especially with park naturalist Gary Hill leading the group and stopping us from time to time to give a brief nature lesson.   I volunteered to bring up the rear to help keep us all together, which required that I resist the temptation to slip off by myself to experience the magic of sitting quietly in silence and moonlight.

Gary keeps up a pretty brisk pace, which helps to keep folks warm on winter nights (although tonight was barely below freezing),  but it also kept me from spending a lot of time trying to get good photos of the night sky.  No time to stop and set up a tripod, so these shots are pretty much point and shoot on the run, resulting in grainy but rather lovely images of the kind of darkened landscape few of us ever get to see any more.  Both Venus and Jupiter hung in the sky like bright lamps tonight.  I believe the shining planet in this photograph is Venus.

The ice-covered lake shone with a silvery glow as the moon climbed higher and higher, accompanied here by the winter constellation Orion, with the bright Betelgeuse marking Orion's right shoulder.  (If you click on this photo, you may also see part of Orion's belt as well as his left foot.)

There were a few clouds, but they only served to amplify the beauty of the moonlight.

After making our way around the lake, the group stopped off at the warming hut for hot cocoa and hot dogs while enjoying a roaring fire in the fireplace inside.  Now that I no longer had to watch out for stragglers, I went outside to try to get better photographs of the moon, but all my shots turned out super-grainy, the moon consistently blurred by a purple halo.  To the naked eye, the moon's edge was as sharp as if carved with a scalpel.

Since I couldn't get any perfect photos of the moon, I went ahead and had fun distorting the photos with various editing options, altering the exposure and the gamma and saturation and even changing the colors outright, coming up with some amazing abstractions of the moon shining through trees.  This is one that pleased me even more than a perfect image would have.

A Frosty Walk Up the Red Oak Ridge

Oof!  The consequences of too many weeks of overeating and undermoving were evident today as I huffed and puffed up the steep parts of the Red Oak Ridge Trail at Moreau Lake State Park.  I really gotta get back in shape!  It's too easy to make excuses not to go out for a walk when the weather's really cold, as it was this morning -- about 5 below zero when I came down for breakfast.  But the sun was up, too, and the morning soon warmed up to the teens, so no more excuses, Jackie, get out there and get moving.

When I got to Moreau, I was pleased to see the lake entirely frozen over at last.  It's still too thin to walk on, though, so I hiked around the shore to the trail that would take me about half way up the mountain seen here in this photo and then continue along the ridge.

There's enough up and down to this trail to give you a pretty good workout, but the best part about it is how beautiful it is in every season, as it passes through oak/hickory and mixed conifer forest and crosses several pretty tumbling streams.

The streams were rushing full from recent rains, and the frigid night had turned the watercourses into fairy castles of ice.

After leaving the trail to follow a stream up the mountain, I came to an area of hemlocks and huge boulders, perfect habitat for porcupines, who make their dens in a series of caves that run underneath the boulders and who dine each night up high in the surrounding trees.  I've yet to see one in the flesh up here, but when there's snow, I have seen their well-trodden trails leading from dens to the trees.

Here's one of the caves where they make their dens, detectable from some distance away by a strong odor like rancid sawdust emanating from the depths. As I crouched in this opening to peer in, I could feel warm humid air wafting upwards and out, which explains the festoons of hoarfrost decorating porky's doorway.

Leaning further into the mouth of the cave, I could see many porcupine quills littering the passageway.  I also heard odd sounds coming from deep within, a sort of grunting and muttering with an occasional squeal that let me know that someone was home.  I've never heard porcupines make any noises, but I was hoping it was indeed a porcupine (or two!), and not a bear whose sleep I had disturbed.   (I did record just a few of these sounds, which you can hear in the post below this one.)

Here are some close-up shots of those frosty festoons.

As I walked around the area among the boulders and caves, I saw several similar accumulations of frost, and when I knelt down to examine them, I felt that similar rush of warm humid air and discovered openings leading deep down into and under the rocks.  I wonder just how extensive this cave system is, and if they are all connected.  The porcupine caves are big enough that I could crawl into them if I stayed on my hands and knees (and could bear the odor!), but this opening was much smaller.

And this one smaller still.  When I lifted that maple leaf, I could feel a draft of that warm humid air and see a small passage leading down until it disappeared in darkness.

I sure had a wonderful time up there, poking about in the woods and the rocks and the water just as I used to do when I was a kid.  Pure contentment washes over me, a feeling that I possess everything I could ever need or want, and that all is well.  I was reminded of a poem by Mary Oliver that I looked up when I got home, and yes, she says it exactly right:

When I Am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust, 
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness, 
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.


I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and the discernment,
and never hurry through the world
  but walk slowly, and bow often.


Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.


And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."


I took the slow road home, stopping by the farm where I used to see two huge and beautiful Belgian horses.  In their place today were these two huge and beautiful Paints, who came right up to the fence and let me pet them.  I think they could sense my feeling of sweet contentment.  They certainly added to it with the gentle gazes from their lovely eyes.

Who's That Grunting Down in That Cave?

Be sure to turn up the volume on your computer, and you might hear little gruntings down in this cave.  I'm assuming it was a porcupine, since quills and porky scat were all around, and in snowy winter, we can trace porcupine tracks into this cave way up on a ridge overlooking Moreau Lake.

But I've never heard a porcupine make any sounds.  Um. . . .  Would a bear ever occupy a porcupine's cave?

A Three-Eagle, One-Photo Day

Wow, a three-eagle day, and THIS was the best photo I could get?!   With the naked eye, I could hardly see that Bald Eagle perched in the tree along the Hudson River yesterday,  although my binoculars showed it clearly enough.

My camera couldn't see it very well, though.  This is the closest I can crop without pixillation.  But I think the white head and tail are evident even in this blurry shot.

When I say a three-eagle day, I should amend that to say Sue's three-eagle day, since my friend Sue is the one who actually saw and identified the distant specks that only later revealed themselves to be eagles.  We started our birdwatching day yesterday at the Betar Byway in South Glens Falls, where Sue saw the first eagle flying along the river (I arrived too late to catch sight of it).  After waiting in vain for a reappearance while stamping our feet in the cold, we then hopped in our nice warm cars and moved upstream to where the Hudson makes its big curve just above the Spier Falls Dam in Moreau.  That's where we saw the eagle perched in the tree above, very close to the site where state park naturalists have placed a road-killed deer carcass.  It was probably resting after enjoying its carrion breakfast.

That eagle soon took to the air and soared close over our heads before taking off upstream with the heavy, slow wingbeats so distinctive of this species.  Here, Sue and another eagle enthusiast named Pat follow the bird's flight until it disappeared among the trees far upstream.  Pat is a truly dedicated seeker of eagles who had been at this site for many hours already before Sue and I arrived, and it was she who pointed out the one I managed to photograph.

Pat also told us about another good spot for eagle sightings, Fish Creek at Stafford's Bridge, so off we drove to Stafford's Bridge Road between Saratoga and Schuylerville.  We were just in the process of telling each other we didn't think this was a likely spot, when this great big brown juvenile eagle came soaring toward us, dive-bombing a double line of pigeons sunning themselves on power lines right over our heads.  I hope Sue got a good photo, because I sure didn't.  Maybe she'll post a photo of it on her wonderful blog Water-Lily.

 So Pat's recommendation came true after all, and we thank her for it.  We'll have to revisit often, as long as the water stays open.


Three eagles in one day is rather remarkable, especially since they quite promptly disappeared from sight soon after we saw them.  Most days, we search and search to no avail.  On Sunday afternoon, my husband and I stopped by the Hudson bend at Moreau, hoping to spot eagles feeding at the deer carcass.  We didn't see any, but the river was so lovely and serene I just had to take photos of it.  If I were an eagle, I'd sure like to call this place my home.

Another Year of Wonders

Drizzly and raw yesterday, but I hardly noticed the weather outside, immersed as I was indoors, reviewing the past year's blog posts.  What a year of adventures it was, and how glad I am that I keep this blog, so that I may revisit each outing, marveling at the bounty of wonders that surround us here and rejoicing in the dear friends who share my enchantment with the natural world.  (Readers can revisit some of these outings, too,  by clicking on the colored words.)

The weather was a huge influence on the natural environment this year, beginning with deep snows and bitter cold that started last January.  Although the snow came late (not until after Christmas), it came fast and deep and persistent, lasting until way into April on many wooded trails.  This photo of my friend Sue Pierce was taken on the banks of the Hudson in mid-January, when the snow was so deep and soft our snowshoes hardly helped us.  Not that we let that keep us out of the woods!

 Here's another friend, Evelyn Greene, who is an expert on the qualities of "frazil" ice, a special kind of fluid ice that here fills the Hudson north of Warrensburg.  This photo was taken in mid-March, when dams of frazil blocked the river and caused record high flooding above this stretch of the river.

On March 19, we had the biggest and brightest full moon since 1993, a "super perigee moon," when the moon became full just at the closest point to earth in its orbit.  And it just so happened that Moreau Lake State Park had scheduled a full-moon hike that night, a night that was clear and cold, so many of us got to watch this beautiful moon rise over the frozen lake.

 

April came, and with it torrential rains that, combined with rapid snow-melt in the mountains, filled the rivers to record levels, flooding riverside homes and washing out many roads and bridges in low-lying areas.  These houses are along the Hudson at Lake Luzerne.

Here's another view of that raging Hudson where it roars through -- and completely fills -- a gorge just upstream from the flooded homes.

The rains weren't ALL bad news, especially for the frogs and toads and other amphibians that were on the move in mid-April, heading toward their mating pools.  The Wilton Wildlife Preserve and Park conducted an amphibian-assistance program, where volunteers helped these little critters safely across the roads one rainy night.  One of the naturalists directing the program located this pair of Spade-foot Toads by their distinctive mating calls, and he restrained them briefly so that we could see them -- a rare treat, since the toads will use their spade-equipped hind feet to dig into the sand, remaining underground for the rest of the year.  What a couple of cuties!

Warm weather arrived in May, along with the annual explosion of spring wildflowers.  Day after day I filled page after page of my notebooks with flower finds, but the highlight of the month was a trip to Dorset Mountain in Vermont, organized by fellow plant lovers Ed Miller and Nan Williams.  This mountain is the site of long-defunct marble quarries,  which enrich the surrounding forest with lime, creating a rich habitat for such beauties as these Small Yellow Lady Slippers, so numerous we could hardly move without stepping on them.

June was a month of many amazing adventures, beginning with a trip to Concord, Massachusetts, with my friends Sue Pierce,  Ed Miller,  Ruth Schottman, and Nan Williams, plant enthusiasts all.  Thanks to Sue's long association with things Thoreauvian, she was able to find us all lodging at a charming B&B right on the shores of Walden Pond.  The focus of our trip was a visit to the New England Wildflower Society's Garden in the Woods in nearby Framingham, but we also enjoyed exploring the woods around Walden Pond.

Hardly more than two weeks later, I joined Ruth, Ed, Nan, and a fourth botanist, Frank Knight (second from left), on a 5-day trip to Ithaca to attend a meeting of the American Botanical Society, filled with field trips to many different habitats.  Of course, the botanizing was educational and great fun, but the best part of the trip was spending time with these wonderful folks, who are as knowledgeable about plants as they are delightful to be with.

If not for my blog, I doubt I would have come to know such wonderful folks as these, as well as other members of the Thursday Naturalists, a friendly group of very well-informed nature enthusiasts who have graciously invited me to join them on their weekly excursions to interesting nature sites.

Another friend I've made through my blog is Evelyn Greene, a life-long explorer of the Adirondacks who knows lots of secret places where very rare plants grow, and she is kind enough to share those secrets with me from time to time.  Of course, I am also sworn to secrecy about these locations, but Evelyn does allow me to show some of the treasures we find, such as this exquisite Dragon's Mouth Orchid (Arethusa bulbosa), one of New York's rarest and most beautiful wildflowers.

Evelyn also took me to another site where the stunning Showy Lady's Slipper was growing abundantly, its rosy and rotund blooms popping up everywhere we looked.  This is another of the more than 50 species of orchids native to New York State; in fact, more orchids grow here than in either Florida or Hawaii, and many of them prefer cold northern bogs.

July brought several excursions to Pyramid Lake in Essex County, in the Adirondacks.  Except for the retreat center that occupies one shore of the lake, this is a pristine wilderness lake, surrounded by the Pharaoh Lake Wilderness Area and accessible to autos only by way of the retreat center.  A number of rare species of plants can be found along these shores, and I was pleased to conduct a field trip here open to members of the newly formed Adirondack Botanical Society.  I also returned later in the month to attend a retreat.

In August, we had a little wildlife adventure right in our own backyard, where I captured three wild four-week-old kittens when their feral mother left them alone for a while.  It's hard to believe that such tiny furballs could be so fierce, but they sure put up a fight, hissing and spitting and scratching and biting, but I got them home and we managed to gentle them with love and food.  We eventually found a home for the pretty calico one pictured here, but we kept the little gray-and-white, as well as her tiger brother, who now keep us laughing with their kittenish antics and our laps warmed by their furry and purry snuggles.

Another August adventure was following my intrepid friends Evelyn and Bonnie as we bushwhacked our boats through trackless forest to isolated Little Rankin Pond.  To get there, we first paddled across a larger pond and traversed an extensive sphagnum bog, where Evelyn spotted an abundant growth of an increasingly rare plant called Podgrass.  Plus lots of orchids, too.  And we found our way back again, no problem at all.  Evelyn  knows her way around the woods.

Our summer was the rainiest I can remember, so that when September arrived,  the forest simply exploded with more mushrooms than I have ever seen, in amazing varieties of shape and color.  

September also brought Hurricane Irene, which then became Tropical Storm Irene, dumping unprecedented amounts of rainfall in the rivers and mountain valleys, causing devastating floods in the Adirondacks and Catskills, along the Mohawk, and in valley towns in Vermont.  Shortly after came another storm, Lee, which dumped more flooding rains on the same communities.  We were lucky not to suffer much damage in Saratoga County, but this photo of the Mohawk River at Waterford/Cohoes shows something of the force of that water.

We were lucky, too, that the charming coastal village of Rockport, Massachusetts, was spared from hurricane damage, for that's where my husband and I planned to spend a few days in late September.  My friend Sue has come to this place for years, and because she was vacationing here at the same time we were, she could show us the best features of both the village and the surrounding area.  Our hotel balcony looked right over the water, and we slept each night with the sound of the sea in our ears.  Lovely!

Snow in October!  This sure has been a year of very strange weather.  Also, the autumn foliage colors were quite muted this year, except for occasional trees that blazed as if lit from within.  Our snow was just a dusting, though, not like the heaps and heaps that fell so destructively downstate, and rain soon washed it away.  We've not had any significant snowfall since.

Come November, the flowers and fungi no longer add their colors to the woods, so a nature enthusiast has to find something else to capture her interest.  Happily, another of the friends I've made through my blog is Nancy Slack, a biology professor and bryologist who is kindly trying to teach me the names of the mosses and lichens and liverworts that decorate nearly every tree and fallen log in the forest.  Most have no common names, so I find them a little hard to memorize, but little by little, I will learn some.  For example, I do know that that little green puff of moss is Ulota crispa, and the lacy brown stuff behind is some species of Frullania liverwort.  I don't know that greenish-gray lichen.

And now it's the very last day of December.  Christmas has come and gone with no snow, but ice has started to cover the quiet back bays of the lakes and rivers, and icicles form where water splashes up from rushing creeks.  Who knows what the rest of the winter will bring?  It's been quite a year for surprises.

 So here we start again, another year of keeping this nature blog.  Without it, would I have ventured out as much as I did, even on days that were 30 below?  Or 95 above?  Maybe not.  But I'm happy to have that spur to boot me out the door.  I'm always glad when I'm out there.  I found nearly 40 new plants this year to add to my life list, and I collected a number of specimens of plants for which there was no record in Saratoga County.  How many more are out there, just waiting for me to find them?

I can't end the year without a special thanks to my dear friend and fellow student of nature, Sue.  It's a wonderful thing to find a companion so perfectly in tune with the way I like to walk through the woods or move on the water, who doesn't grow impatient as I struggle to make my camera focus or while I thumb through my field guides to try to identify my find.  And what would I do without her sharp eyes that see so much that I would overlook?  Plus her knowledge of birdsong and woodland lore.  Thanks, Sue, for being such a wonderful nature buddy.  Here's to another year of adventuring.