Searching for Wildlife

According to my wall calendar, this is National Wildlife Week, so my friend Sue and I went searching for wildlife on Sunday afternoon, despite the threat of rain and a cold blustery wind.   The Hudson River seemed the most likely spot for spotting migrating waterfowl, but it took some searching to find any open water on the still-mostly-frozen river.  We found some at Hudson Crossing Park in Schuylerville, and made our way down to the waterside by post-holing through packed snow.

Oh look, there's a Great Blue Heron!  Ha ha!  I think it will be quite a few weeks yet before we see this majestic bird wading the shallows, although his cast-iron image stands guard all year along the trail at Hudson Crossing Park.

We made our way to this refurbished bridge, closed to automobiles but open to pedestrians, bikers, and snowmobiles.  This was a good spot to survey both the sky and the river, searching for any signs of animal life.

Sue spotted at least one Bald Eagle soaring over the treeline, as well as a pair of Common Mergansers disappearing downstream before I could notice them.  And then she pointed out a big bunch of ducks milling about upstream. Although they were just black specks on the water to me, Sue immediately identified them as a flock of Goldeneyes.  And so they were, my binoculars confirmed. The males were doing their "Look at Me!" thing, throwing their heads way back and then sharply forward, and we could hear them  "peenting" at the same time.  I didn't know a Goldeneye could sound like a Nighthawk!  I do know they kind of whistle when they fly.

The zoom on my little camera is woefully inadequate for capturing distant creatures, but at least you can see the broad white sides of these Goldeneyes, even if you can't see the white cheek spot or anything like a golden eye.

As a frigid wind kept whipping our reddened cheeks and dripping noses, we decided we'd seen enough wildlife for the day.  But at least we know the migration season is now upon us, and soon these waters will open wide to welcome more and more migrating flocks of waterfowl.  And we'll be back!

Hang On! Hope for Spring!

Maybe you've heard me say, "Oh, I just love winter!"  Maybe I even said it several times.  And usually, I do.  But I sure didn't love THIS winter!  Sub-zero mornings all through February.  Wind that drove that cold right down into my bones.  No thaws at all, so snow and ice just kept building up on the roof, and icicles almost reached the ground (like these on my neighbor's shed).

And then there were the leaks.  This mess is AFTER we paid a crew $400 to break up the ice dams along our eaves.  A day later, another snowstorm piled another heap on our roof that just wouldn't budge, despite the steep pitch and slippery slates.  Snowmelt water kept backing up under the slates and pouring down through our upstairs ceilings.

Ah well, no sense calling those guys back for another $400.  The damage has already been done.

Yeah, I've been feeling kinda grumpy.  I couldn't even bring myself to post a blog.  And then TODAY arrived!  Sunny and warm!  Almost 50!  Blue sky from horizon to horizon!  Hope returns!

To celebrate, I headed up to the Betar Byway in South Glens Falls.  No snowshoes for me, today.  No sir!  I wanted to swing my legs and feel clear pavement beneath my feet, and this wide plowed walkway that follows the Hudson River was just the ticket.

The river was still mostly frozen over here from shore to shore, but here and there I could see open water, dancing and sparkling as if in joy to be free at last!

Little streamlets, too, had cast off their ice and had carved meandering courses through the still-deep snow, splashing a happy music as they rushed along.

And oh, just look! The first flower of spring is getting ready to bloom, as the spathes of Skunk Cabbage start rounding out and coloring up.  Any day now, folks.   The Equinox is on its way!  Hooray!

Hey! It's March!

Hey!  It's March!  Time for Winter to think about moving on out.  I heard that the temps should rise above freezing tonight as this afternoon's snowfall turns to rain.   Perhaps Winter finally got the message, after the coldest February that anyone can remember.  But it still felt pretty wintry earlier today when I went for a snowshoe walk around Moreau Lake.

As this photo shows, the snow was still very deep, and it was exhausting to try to hike through it.

I was lucky, though, to find a well-trampled snowshoe trail all around the lake.  So off I went.  Much easier walking, this way.

There were not many animal tracks in the deep snow, but I did see many of them leading to this opening at the base of a tree.  I remember surprising a litter of baby foxes under this very tree a few years back, so it looks like the fox family still resides here.  I could see small canine footprints on the surface of the snow, made by an animal light enough to travel without breaking through the crust.

By the time I reached the south end of the lake, the wind had found its way over the mountains to rake my face with icy blasts, so I moved into the shelter of the pines that tower there.  I was struck by how the giraffe-hide reticulation of the Pitch Pines' reddish bark distinguishes  these pines from the gray-barked White Pines that share this stretch of forest.

These wind-whipped Phragmites added the only touch of color to this winter-dark scene.

At the picnic area near the beach, I was pleased to discover a new kiosk containing these interesting facts about Moreau Lake.

There was also a nice big map of all the lands contained within Moreau Lake State Park.  Many folks are surprised to see how small a portion of the park the lake and campground occupy.  And soon, to judge from a news announcement today about state money pouring into improvements for all state parks, the green area on this map will have to be expanded to include the acreage surrounding the former McGregor Correctional Facility.   That acreage includes the small Lake Bonita, seen at the lower left on this map.

The only other soul I saw on the lake today was this cheerful fellow, who was happy to chat a bit while he jiggled his bait in the water.  His name was Neil and he'd come to Moreau from Galway, a village on the southwestern side of Saratoga County.  His brother was with him, zipped inside his own portable shanty, so I never saw him, although he did call hello from within the protection of his shelter.  I have never encountered an ice fisherman who wasn't happy to visit with me, passing stranger though I may be.

No wonder Neil seemed happy.  Look at this beautiful catch of Yellow Perch and Rainbow Trout!

Blue Sky, Busy River, Deep Snow

Yet another sub-zero morning on Friday, but man, that sky was BLUE!  I just had to get outdoors.  So off to the river I went after lunch, waiting until the temps reached the double digits.  Whenever I walk down through the woods at the end of Potter Road and come out onto this scene of West Mountain rising against the sky and the quiet coves lined with stately pines, I'm always glad I made the effort to get here.

Indeed, it did take quite an effort to make my way through deep snow in the woods, but I didn't feel it was safe to go out on the ice where the snow wasn't so deep.  Because the river rises and falls with dam operations, the ice breaks at the edge and water pours over the surface, weakening the ice. It was obvious from their tracks that many animals had ventured out there, quite likely to drink from the only liquid water to be found for miles around.

Lots and lots of trails on the river today, and I'm guessing that almost every one of them was made by minks.  I don't know where the coyotes and foxes and fishers are traveling these days, but not through the deep snow of these woods.

One reason I think that minks made these trails (aside from the aquatic habitat) is that they made  tunnels through the snow of just about the same size as a mink's diameter.

Here was a different track!  Looks like a bunch of turkeys were wandering out on the ice.

This imprint of a turkey's tail feathers confirmed my guess.

I was struck by the stark beauty of these alder twigs silhouetted against the snow, reminding me of Japanese ink drawings I have seen, perhaps of plum blossoms. (Ah, plum blossoms!  Spring!)

Here was a flash of bright color in these snowy woods!  Some vivid orange-red growth has infested the bark of this birch tree.  From a distance it looked as if blood was streaming down the trunk.

Is this a fungus?  Or is it a lichen?  I wonder if someone can tell me.

More odd stuff.  Fungal blobs proliferating on the trunks of Hop Hornbeam trees.  Looked like a family of hedgehogs climbing the trees.

I couldn't pry up the frozen ruffles to examine the underside, so I don't know how to ID these growths, either.  The tops look a bit like Turkey Tail, but I've never seen that fungus form tight blobs like this.

Update: A very helpful fellow blogger named Don Butler (www.wcny.blogspot.com) has suggested that the red stuff oozing from the birch bark could be the fungus Phlebia radiata, and that these blobby fungi on the Hop Hornbeams could be Sweet Knot (Globifomes graveblens).  Two new fungi for me, and a wonderful new blog to follow as well.  Thanks, Don!


When I first started out through the woods today, I was freezing.  But after trudging through this deep snow, it didn't take long before I started stripping off scarf and hat and unzipping my coat.  Oof!  Hard work, indeed!

Heading home, I was glad to step out of the woods onto this plowed road for the last couple hundred yards to my car.  I've been hunkering down too much this frigid February, and I can tell my endurance has suffered.  But hey, it's MARCH on Sunday!  Winter will soon be over.  Won't it?

Frozen River

Darn, but it's cold! And it just keeps being cold.  Every morning, below zero, accompanied by wind that makes the cold so much worse.  It's really put a cramp in my winter outdoor activities.  I started out on a walk today, but after only a few minutes my face went numb and the cold kicked up the ocular rosacea that makes my eyes burn.  Tears began to wet my frozen cheeks.  Very unpleasant!  So I jumped in my car instead, turned up the heat, and drove up to The Glen north of Warrensburg to see what the frazil ice was doing after all these sub-zero nights.

Well, the frazil's not doing much at all, since the Hudson River is frozen solid above the bridge.  It's here in the turbulent waters that frazil forms, the turbulence tossing super-cooled droplets into the frigid air, where they freeze immediately and fall back in the water, forming mats of slushy ice that can dam the river and pile up in prodigious heaps along the shore.  With the river's surface frozen over, no new frazil can form.  There was plenty of frazil in the river (now covered with snow), but nowhere near the monumental heights that can block roads and topple trees, as I've seen occur in years past.  No excitement here today.

I followed the iced-over river south through Stony Creek to Hadley/Lake Luzerne, and here I found open water at last, where the Hudson falls through a gorge at Rockwell Falls.  This is the view from the bridge at Lake Luzerne.

A beautiful view, yes, and I found the long shadows across the deep snow added considerable interest to the scene.

I found out how deep that snow was when I tried to climb down to the falls to take a closer look.  Up to my thighs!  Even if I'd worn snowshoes, it would have been slow going.  But I struggled on, getting as close to the falls as I dared.  In summer, I will stand right over the falls on the rocks, but now I couldn't be sure I wasn't standing on an ice shelf that might give way.  So I kept a little distance.  I was still close enough to feel the mist on my face.

How beautifully that mist has accumulated along the banks, creating fairy castles of cascading icicles!

Lovely, indeed!  Well worth the cold-numbed, tear-wet cheeks to see.

Outdoors at Last!

Sunshine!  Blue sky!  Warm!  Well . . .  sorta warm. Way below zero when I got up, but by noon on Wednesday it was close to 20 degrees and, most important, NO WIND!  I could get out for a walk at last!  I felt like I'd been sprung from prison when I strapped on my snowshoes and trekked down to the Hudson shore at the boat-launch site below Spier Falls.

And trek was the word for it -- meaning, a difficult journey.  Even though it's only a hundred yards or so from the parking lot to the Hudson shore, that snow was DEEP!

My snowshoes sank in a least a foot, so it made for rather slow going.  And quite a bit of huffing and puffing.  I hadn't been out hiking for too many days.  Darn, but it doesn't take long to get out of shape.!

When I reached the shore and found the river solidly frozen over, I decided to save my energy the way the coyotes did, by traveling on the ice where the snow lay only a few inches deep.  I don't know if these tracks are those of a single animal retracing its route several times, or if the creature was joined by traveling companions, but I was happy to stride along the same route, enjoying that lovely blue sky, dazzling snow, and the view of forested mountains.

I amused myself trying to identify the trees hanging over the bank, and I was especially delighted to find the brilliantly colored twigs of many Striped Maples.  As colorful as a Milk Snake!

I walked as far as to where I knew a creek spilled into the river.  Although the creek was frozen solid and hidden under several feet of snow, I knew I'd reached my destination when I saw a cluster of Leatherwood shrubs on the riverbank.  This is a shrub that usually indicates the presence of lime in its soil, and it's quite unusual to find it growing along the river, where the rocks tend to be granitic, rather than limestone or marble.  A rocky mountainside rises steeply behind where these shrubs are growing,  so perhaps there are marble boulders among them, leeching their calcareous minerals into the surrounding soils.

This is one of the boulders that appears to have toppled down from the heights above.  I remember finding it covered with Red Trillium and Hepatica in spring, two wildflowers I often find in forests with limey substrates, although they can thrive in neutral soils as well.

While exploring this site, I chanced upon the tracks laid down be an earlier snowshoer, so I was grateful to have my route eased as I made my way back to my car by walking through the woods.  Almost there, I stopped to enjoy the music of another snow-covered creek, only this one had a few little pools of visibly  -- and audibly -- open water.  At each of these open sites, numerous animal tracks were in evidence, as the woodland creatures sought out one of the very few places to drink that was not frozen solid this bitter winter.  As for me, I was rosy warm by now, and glad to sit in the snow to rest, enchanted by the muffled silence of the snowy woods, the only sound the cheerful gurgle of this little creek rushing among the rocks.